That doesn't feel accurate to me. If you're laying off employees en masse while getting new h1b visas, maybe - but everybody I know who's gotten a green card from tech employment was employed and working for a long time before that process even started.

Not if the category of employees is different. You are assuming all candidates and roles are fungible.

How is it hand waving? It's literally true a large corporation can fire a customer support agent while sponsoring a software engineer, it is not interchangeable talent

I mean in the LLM era you need fewer employees and you need them to be very good to not become 10x bad engineers, so you could be processing green cards for your super stars while having to do layoffs

For one thing, if you get laid off you only have two weeks to find another job or you need to leave the country. This balance of power is lop sided so the employer can get away with abusing the employee unreported.

> trying to end immigration, even of (or especially of) highly skilled workers

It is the color of the skin of those workers that matters to this administration, not their skill levels.

> trying to end immigration, even of (or especially of) highly skilled workers

No, it's not.

I know plenty of of software engineers, good ones, who can't find work. Businesses which abuse the H1B and Green card programs to import cheaper workers when there is not a shortage of same here, are acting in bad faith and they know it. They are lying that the people they're bringing over are exceptionally skilled, and they are lying that they cannot find similar workers here at any price.

There's not a shortage of workers domestically anywhere in IT. Especially not now. There's a shortage of them willing to work for the shitty wages Amazon, Microsoft, etc. wants to pay those roles. So they hire companies like Infosys etc. to supply them, which they have done for decades by means of lies and fraud.

If they were bringing over truly exceptional individuals, that would be a different story.

To be clear none of this is even a knock on the skill and integrity of these workers they're bringing over. I'm just saying they are very similar to the tons of US-citizen engineers early in their careers who are out of work, and that if we were a real country, we'd prioritize citizens' need for a job above FAANG profits, by saying "Tough shit, pay more if you can't fill a position."

Agreed. It's a farce on all sides. Most companies abuse H1B and PERM. We could reform immigration, by A. only allowing visas for people demonstrably very talented, stealing star performers from other countries instead of just taking bulk new grads. And then B. allowing green cards just on the basis of them paying lots of taxes, advancing in their job, establishing a family, etc. Because yes! Of course it's good for the American company to keep the tenured developer who has established themselves here!

But of course Congress is inhabited by people with the maturity level of children, so one party wants us to admit anyone who doesn't like their home country, and the other party mainly just wants to impress Trump, so no one will work on or negotiate on serious policy proposals.