By setting up a jobs market for foreigners but not for Americans, and by allowing corporations to install immigrant intake machines at the expense of Americans? Yes. That's what needs fixing.

I'm in favor of legal immigration. I'm not in favor of H1Bs and the "default" pathway.

If we don't get educated and employed as Americans, then yes, we'll be committing suicide.

If someone's post-graduate work is that important, and that particular individual is so unbelievably critical to that particular post-doc work, then surely the fee would be worth it. If it's not, then advantaging the market for post-docs in America to actual Americans seems like a good thing, something governments are meant to do for their citizens.

Is there a reason the American government shouldn't be allowed to act on behalf of its citizens and must act in favor of everyone else?

This comment is an excellent of scarcity mentality* (I can't decide if that's an insult; if it is, I apologize).

It's in America's best interest as a nation to have as large a pool of smart students to choose from as possible. The loser nations are the ones whose brightest minds leave (aka: "brain drain")

If the people of a nation capable of attracting foreign students are resentful about it, the real problem probably lies elsewhere (eg: inequality, economic depression, or broken media environment)

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scarcity_(social_psychology)

Keeping highly educated and productive foreigners, whom which another country paid to raise and school, IS America acting on behalf of its citizens. These grads will pay tons of tax, create economic activity, perhaps even new companies. And it cost America zero. It’s an insanely good deal.

Even if we admitted 100% of qualified American citizens who apply, there wouldn’t be enough filled slots to run the programs and do the research.

Moreover, educating foreigners in America does benefit Americans: we get the research, schools get their foreign tuition dollars, local landlords and business absorb their cost of living expenses, local governments get tax money from them, they have kids and they become Americans. Or, if they go home they have great stories to share about how amazing America was for them, inspiring a new generation to come here and grow our country.

When the American government acts as it does now, all that happens is that economic activity moves somewhere else. There is no void filled by Americans, there’s just a void.