Because if they couldn't get me, they'd be forced to hire the next best person from my interview cohort. That would reduce the pool available to all the other companies.

Armchair economist here. More workers = less competition. Competition affects salary. Simple supply and demand? All of the companies who spoke out like Amazon, Apple, and Google NEED workers to fill those roles to run business, and rely on them heavily because there isn't enough data scientists, or engineers for example, in the U.S. or the world, for that matter.

Because the demand for good workers doesn't go away when the supply of good workers gets decreased. To be clear, I am supportive of immigrants working whatever jobs they want to work and that people will hire them for (and I'd argue that the free market is also supportive of this), I'm just noting that people have a financial motivation to keep people more competent than them out of the labor pool.

(Unless, of course, the replacement of competent workers with incompetent ones causes the economy to shrink, which now that I think about it is pretty likely.)

In theory, increasing the supply of labor lowers it's value.

In practice, I'm unconvinced. Tech companies succeed when they put quality over quantity, and demand for high-quality engineers simply exceeds the quantity put out by our universities.

We aren't hiring H1Bs for cheap labor, we're poaching the best from other countries. Hiring more lower-quality local talent is not equivalent.

Increasing the supply of labor, and accepting lower wages and worse working conditions than natives.

Edit because I hit the post limit, in response to a comment on the idea that they are mostly poaching top talent from other countries: In reality, most are either low pay low skill workers for contracting companies like Infosys (largest employers of H1Bs), or fresh grads that are cheaper and less risky to train (because they, in a sense, own them).

Edit edit for serge2k: If you're so great, then I'm sure they won't mind paying extra for you when the visa party is over.

because apparently we (people on visas) are getting horribly underpaid. Trump supporters keep trumpeting this despite the fact that I don't remember showing any of them my pay stubs.

I'm sure Brin showing up in person at the protests was totally because a couple hundred google employees getting screwed is going to drastically raise salaries.

As for people less competent then me. Maybe they should focus more on improving their skills than on how they are getting fucked by immigrants. Guess what, you'll still be whiny losers if they toss out the H-1Bs tomorrow. You'll still be whiny losers if they start tossing out green card holders.

You know why? Because you whine instead of going out and figuring out what you actually need to do in order to get a job.