[ketsu]

You make some fair points, but if we allowed unemployed H1-Bs to stay here, wouldn’t they just put a drain on our system?

Why not? If we're going to bring over smart people to work here, they should be able to go on the dole just like everybody else. We can't have our cake and eat it too. H1B's(not superstars) are a lot less attractive when you have to pay them benefits like everyone else.

The minute you take away social services from a group like the H1B's you create a slave class that will necessarily be attractive to employers.

[JimWayne]

H1B visa holders are supposed to leave the country if they get laid off and cannot find another job within 10 days.

H1B holders who are direct employees make as much as American programmers. The disparity in wages comes from Indians and Russians themselves. There are dozens of placement companies run by Indians and Russians who do the paperwork for visa and bring these programmers into the US as their employees. They are then placed as consultants in major companies that pay these middlemen MORE THAN the salary of a programmer.

Why "MORE THAN?" Because they get paid the consulting rate which is higher than the salary. The middlemen pay a salary of 45-50,000 per year and pocket the rest which is around 75,000 a year. This is how the average salary for H1Bs comes down. As far as companies like Intel or Microsoft are concerned, they're paying the full rate.