Of course it is. Xenophobia goes beyond fear of foreigners and often manifests itself via attribution of negative traits to a culture, usually something nasty and bad like violating laws. I encourage you to check out some definitions [1] for more details.
> and it might actually represent his experience of Russians.
Saying "In my experience, most Russians/H1B holders are" is just a form of confirmation bias.
If I said, "In my experience of living in Bay Area, most Americans are <insert some bad trait here>", you would be quicker to call out my B.S. and would be right of course. It's just Russians and H1b holders is a smaller group that is easier to attack like that.
> Stereotypes exist for a reason; it should hardly be surprising that people from the same culture tend to act similarly, and not all cultural traits are perceived positively by others.
Come on, implying that Russians are getting speeding tickets and damaging apartments and H1b holders are glad being exploited are not "cultural traits" by any measure, please.
Anyways, it is really disappointing for me to get to such a low point in discourse on HN where we have to debate the basics of being civil in our comments.