If only they could "unite" to cut waste, reduce spending, protect privacy and lower taxes. Baby steps I suppose.

We can also cut taxes on the majority of Americans, offsetting that cut by reverting the tax rates on the rich to where they were during Bill Clinton's administration.

As for privacy, it sure as hell isn't Democrats that are indefinitely sending people to military prison camps without trial. Or spying on domestic phone calls and intercepting internet traffic for deep packet inspection.

It was under Clinton, a Democrat, that we had a balanced budget and fiscal responsibility - when was the last time we had a Republican president where that was true?

You don't have to be so partisan in response to bland factual statements.

The only instance I have some agreement with H1Bs is when a foreign student completed a degree from an American university. Otherwise, special processing to import employees for consulting firms, tech companies, etc. should not be allowed at all.

The intelligence percentages are roughly the same for all countries (maybe 1% high gifted, 10% quite gifted and so on), so if you took the 1% from other countries, that would give the U.S of A a highly competitive advantage, don't you think?

Right now, we have a situation where Americans know that if they go into law, they'll be largely protected from competition. This also holds true to a lesser extent for medicine (my uncle, who is a radiologist, told me that licensing is a big factor in keeping the work in the US).

So if we expand this program, we should expect less interest among Americans in high tech, and more interest in law. This leads to a positive feedback loop (or negative, if you want to call it that). Fewer Americans -> more need for visas -> further deterrence to Americans -> greater shortage -> more visas...

The only real solution would be a global workforce where credentials and licenses are equally available regardless of nationality/border. But obviously, that's not happening.

As a result, I'd compromise by supporting a limited number of visas under terms that preserve the mobility of the worker. But a large expansion of the existing program? I think it's a bad idea.

that said, it will be a cold day in hell when the US legal system opens up to international competition, and the imbalance itself is destructive. If my goal were to use government policy to discourage americans from engineering/science and encourage them to study law or medicine, I would probably design something very similar to what we have now. The US government goes out of its way to insulate lawyers from competition from overseas. It goes out of its way to subject us-based engineers to increased job competition from overseas.

So we have our young people more interested in law than engineering. Why do our wise policy makers scratch their heads about this? They created this situation.

But I'm not advocating special protections for US based software developers. I just think that the US government has gone out of it's way to specifically expose US scientists and engineers (and related high tech occupations) to foreign competition. I'd be satisfied if the US government simply stopped doing active harm to this profession and treated it like any other unregulated profession (ie., immigrants are free to go into it as they are free to go into any other profession - but no special visas for this specific field).

Actually, I'm not even completely opposed to some specific targeting of high tech. Because high tech tends to be a wealth generating field, it might make sense to target tech workers. Like I said earlier, I would support a moderate number of visas under terms that preserve the freedom and mobility of the engineer (ie., no indentured servitude).

But what we have right now - ie., hundreds of thousands of visas under indentured conditions with almost no enforcement of the paltry protections that are there? It goes way too far, and ends up a creating a deterrence for US students who might have otherwise gone into engineering.

I also think that this threatens the long-term viability of high tech in the US. We do need a healthy flow of our own citizens (and by this, I mean people who grew up in the US and came through our educational system) into high tech occupations. Otherwise, we will, guaranteed, one day lose our high tech industry in this country.

So I'd say - yes, supplement our work force with judicious use of visas, but also be very careful to ensure that we are not bringing in so much competition that US citizens are deterred.

I'd say between 50-60K visas a year would be fine. I'd also point out that there probably aren't that many talented foreign nationals out there every year - much of the overflow is really just a way to drive labor costs down in run-of-the-mill crap programming jobs (which is why most of these visas go to foreign outsourcing firms, not highly innovative positions at google or microsoft).

Further, it is hardly a matter of just high-skilled people. The vast bulk of "guest workers" are basically peasants and semi-skilled workers. It's all part of a larger ploy to drive up asset prices, drive down labor prices, and prevent national unity, which is much-feared by the ruling class.

Futher, should it not seem strange that both candidates, and both parties are in favor of a set of immigration policies that a majority of the people have consistently opposed decade-upon-decade? I hardly think pure democracy is a valid form of government, but at some point, after years and years and years, it is time to do the people's will rather than the elite's.

But here's the thing - suppose I'm offering enough to get people who have already chosen engineering as a path to work for me instead of someone else. That should be enough. But it isn't going to convince a college student to go into engineering instead of law.

Have you seen the compensation for first year associates at top firms? Engineers (even from top tier schools) don't hit that level until a decade in. (EDIT added later: this definitely does not mean I'd rather be a lawyer - I'm only using it as a reflection of the salary level on one competing field for the "best and brightest")

These struggles to find talent among US citizens may be a consequence of the large number of visas awarded. Which turns into a cause (can't recruit, so issue more visas). Which turns into a consequence...

If you use these programs to control wage growth in high tech, but leave other fields like law unchecked... you should expect us citizens to leave high tech and go into other fields instead, which is what we have.

I think there are far too many people going into law or medicine because of the high pay and that leads to lots of crappy lawyers and doctors. We had a similar thing during the dotcom era in IT and quite frankly I'm glad that most of those people have switched careers and CS enrollment dropped.

I'm also guessing more outsourcing is on the way in law and medicine (in that order).

Perhaps I will be down voted for dissenting, but I do write from personal experience. I've seen thousands of jobs outsourced, and contrary to the wisdom expressed on internet forums here and elsewhere, H1B is a prime facilitator of moving work offshore. Entire support/application teams relocated, but supplanted with a liaison team of slightly more experienced non immigrant visa workers brought on shore to work with business units.

It's had a direct effect on wages and opportunity, and a big cause of why American students decline to pursue computer science degrees. Sure, there have been winners and survivors, but the average wage / contract rate for a programmer is less than it was 20-30 years ago. Worse, opportunity has been snuffed out — 20 years ago, corporate jobs would go in search in-house looking for anyone who wished to step up and learn the craft, applying their business knowledge. Now, project work is simply delegated to offshore vendors.

I have no gripe with bringing in the best and the brightest from abroad. There should be no restrictions in that regard. And for many reading Hacker News, it is all about that. However, the bulk of H1B is allotted to entry level programmers that could have easily been filled by Americans, who could have the choice of a better career path alternative. I know, because I was the guy who had to train those guys who were flown in from India, and I would quickly determine that the extent of their training was reading a manual on the plane ride to the U.S.. No problem, the offshore vendor marketing representative would shrug, we'll send another guy tomorrow.

Many posts in defense here of H1B will cite 1s and 2s but corporate outfits use up hundreds (if not 1000s) of such slots. My past experience in Arizona, working for American Express, Honeywell, APS (power company) I can attest to thousands of positions filled by H1B that used to be manned by employees and on-shore contract workers. Most all of those positions are not the "best and the brightest", but imported entry level workers.

Then we consider that our reservation systems, utility company billing systems, charge card systems, claims adjudication are staffed predominately by foreigners. In a few years, the Americans who serve as subject matter experts will step aside and the expertise will be entirely with the offshore vendors. Now, I not going to invoke nationalistic appeals, because I do believe it should be a meritocracy, and some of the rhetoric I hear from xenophobic protectionist interests is simply sickening.

And yes, I've experienced difficulty in finding work in spite of my degree and qualifications. Or have seen my consulting rate / salary depressed because of H1B. I've retooled and work now for less than a third of what I made in the corporate world, as a web developer for a non-profit now — I've been blessed with a spouse that makes double that as a registered nurse. Soon, due to her having health issues, I may need to seek a better paying gig(s). My inbox does occasionally see a recruiter solicitation, but the rates/salary offered are a joke.

Furthermore, the adage that a company cannot find qualified help needs to be qualified with "cannot find help at the pay / rate being offered" — I could go on in this post with detailed occurrences but will cite just one that is emblematic of the issue. A colleague at a past work contract needed to hire a GIS developer and had a candidate in mind. But he could only offer a temporary 3-6 month contract at a rate less than market value. Still, his preferred candidate would have snagged it if there was some guarantee of full time employment at end of the "probationary" period, or an increase in rate or a bonus paid. None of it was to be forthcoming, so it was settled that an H1B candidate got the job.