The people who claim they want “legal” immigration need to get their priorities straight. If we truly want the “best and brightest” H1Bs are the way they come here. We are not importing strawberry pickers with H1Bs. We are hiring highly skilled, often Master Degree level, professionals in way more than IT and programming. If you are against the H1Bs and demand a salary of $130k per year just admit you are against ALL immigration. That’s perfectly fine.
I am against all immigration. It has been abused since 1965. Needs to stop fro along time.
Any “genius” that invents something or is a super specialist in some scientific or medical area can come to the USA anytime. Nobody is going to stop them. A university will get them in/sponsor them. You don’t need an H-1B visa quota at all. There aren’t 65,000 Albert Einsteins in the entire world. Maybe 10 tops.
If that's true, then from the Cringely article linked above, why do we the top 10 H1-B users ALL IT companies?
1. Cognizant 7,101
2. Infosys 6,717
3. Wipro 3,929
4. Tata Consultancy Svces. 3,133
5. Microsoft 1,918
6. HCL 1,446
7. Larsen & Toubro 1,353
8. IBM 1,010
9. Satyam Computer Svces. 911
10. Oracle 801
I've been in software product development/management and consulting for 35 years (over 2 million miles traveling) - and I have to totally disagree with you based on very significant personal experience. I've had to re-develop a significant amount of the design and code produced by H1-B visa employees. A CompSci Bachelor or Master's degree in India is not the same as one received here. That's why they come here to get their degree if they can. Their primary and secondary schooling my be more rigorous, but not college. I've worked with and for (now) hundreds of Indian H1-B and Green Card tech workers and we've had long conversations on this topic. That's what they have told me and that's what I have experienced for the last 25+ years.
I'll take an American raised and educated IT pro over an H1-B worker any time.