> Yes, at the lowest wages they can get. Increase supply -> lower prices (wages) -> more corporate profits!

I don't understand this.

At least in tech megacorps, immigrants get paid the same as americans. They're also very good, and if they were to hire only americans, their talent pool would be worse. They're not 'cashing in' on cheaper labor.

Your entire comment assumes people of different cultural backgrounds cannot collaborate on technical challenges. As someone who manages a team where almost everyone is from a different country I don't see where you got this from. A Laplace transform is a Laplace transform, whether you learn it in a school in India or Nigeria or Lichtenstein.

Your comment is veering uncomfortably close to bigotry.

I do want to follow up to my own comment here, and just mention that I realize that capital's entire point is to get us to blame each other instead of capital (e.g., American software vs Indian|Chinese|etc software).

The moral of the story is that two things can be true at the same time: A lot of H1Bs are rightfully thrilled at the opportunity to work for decent US companies and make decent money to provide for their family. While a lot of American engineers are rightfully wary of the knock-on effects of hiring workers who can be cheaper and more 'malleable' (in a manner of speaking).

Why? All big and even medium tech companies have dev offices in EU and India. As example since it's much easier to deal with visas say in Ireland a lot of hiring was shifted to Irish offices.

Having worked at a few large companies, this was the case at all of them. I do think there is a messy middle of companies built on vibes.

> Google (and friends) famously have teams composed of a single national origin (or caste...). What does that say about their hiring bar?

That racism isn't only something white people are capable of.

What I'm saying is that I don't know if they are US citizens or not. From the look of it, most are not though. As for eligibility to work there, I suppose that's validated before with the recruiter.

That seems like a bias you should work on.

> you should hire an American citizen if they can do the job

I went for a job in the US back in the late 80's (Specialist on hardware).

California it was exceptionally strict. While I was more than qualified it took months of the company advertising in the US, and at the end of it all an American was hired.

The second job for another company in California, same deal except they only advertised in the local newspaper (which felt off), and when I finally got an interview they said they couldn't hire me but recommended places in Mexico to jump the border if I ever wanted a job. Noped out of that fast.

Did eventually get to a spend a couple of years in the US in the 90's. It was the same hoops to jump through as the first company. Wasn't easy or fast.

No idea what it is like now. But I had seen the racism of "They are an immigrant, so they were only hired because we can pay them cheap", not as bad as my Indian co-workers though.

> not if they rank first at whiteboards or fizz-buzz.

As an interviewer, I don't rank candidates. I have my set of questions, some candidates solve them, others don't. You can argue that it's the bar to do your job properly. Should politicians tell big tech companies what's the bar for being a successful SWE?

> When it comes to national interest, the argument for "meritocracy" falls apart quickly.

A lot of US tech exists because of skilled foreign workers. I'm not sure what would be the tech industry without them.

Big tech companies aren't patriotic, they work for their shareholders. They don't care about US or Swiss citizens. They'll open offices wherever there's a high density of talents, and where they can import qualified foreign workers. I'm pretty sure there aren't many SWEs from Switzerland at Google Zurich offices. If the US wants to restrict visas, automatically a portion of these jobs will be moved abroad.