I am saying that the cost of whatever employment taxes an employer writes the check for is borne by the employee, not the employer.
On the more general point of hiring J-1s - I really don’t give a damn; I’m a free-marketer and get sick and tired of the lazy dolts who want to lock everything up so that God forbid someone who wasn’t graced by being born in the US wants to come to one of the few places where an individual can make a decent life for himself and his kin.
Obviously that isn’t these little J-1 twits, but nonetheless, the general point still stands: if you decide you’re going to cut these off because they’re supposedly taking jobs away from Americans (that is one of the oldest, and stupidest, canards in the book), then you’re just a socialist prostitute and the only thing left to discuss is your price.
If an imported worker is truly better that their American counterpart, they should be willing to pay a premium, not less.
This is how the system works in Japan-- you must pay the imported worker a slight premium over the average wage of a local (Japanese or permanent resident) worker. When I worked there, it only took slightly over one month to process my visa for precisely that reason: the government saw the company was willing to pay me a premium wage over my Japanese counterparts so as not likely bringing me in to save on what they normally paid.
The result was fewer, but much happier, foreign workers.