H1-Bs are a dodge today. Their original purpose to bring in people we needed that could not otherwise be found domestically was fine. But now it's a way of getting a cheap educated workforce.

Which we have done to ourselves, somewhat. At my company, American NCGs were demanding upwards of $100K to start. That's just silly, in most cases. After 28 years I still didn't earn that much. The NCGs with no experience, that I would have to train, wanted more to do the same job not as well as I could. So, of course, corporations want to hire cheaper.

But there is no shortage of American engineers. I was reading articles -maybe 10 years ago?- that we had a glut of engineers, but they couldn't find jobs. I suspect that was mostly because of H1-B holders taking them.

As a side note, some engineering jobs they don't even need to H1-B someone. My company had design centers in India and Romania. We had test engineers in the Philippines (among other places). Etc. Didn't have to bring them here, just give them computers and a T1 line, and they're good to go. And cheaper than American engineers.

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