It seems like a better step towards fixing this h1-b mess is to get rid of the lottery system, and just move towards making companies bid for each slot, with the "bid" being a salary that goes 100% towards the employee.

This would be win-win-win:

- Companies that truly need the talent will bid highly for a slot.

- H1-b employees will get paid more as quantities are limited.

- H1-b slots will be better utilized towards jobs that actually need specialization, not lower wage work.

- It'll probably be cheaper to "Hire American"

Downsides: Only FAANG and other large companies could afford such a system, but so what? What entitles companies to hire cheap labor anyway? A fix for this could also be to make it more expensive for each additional h1-b slot the company hires, I suppose.