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Re: 4 – the problem with compensation-based H-1B prioritization is that the skills gap in the country doesn't correlate very well with salaries. A hospital in rural Kentucky that needs immigrant doctors and nurses to serve a critical need to the community isn't going to be able to compete with a Silicon Valley startup that is burning through VC dollars and offering new grads mid-six figure salaries.

The hospital in rural Kentucky needs a physical person in KY

Silicon Valley does not, I am not sure why SV would not just hire the programmer in India, instead of bringing them to Silicon Valley, infact I am pretty sure we are going to see that more and more in the next few years

This is a solvable problem. There are already categories for different occupations. You could put nurses (for example) in their own category with their own quota.

Rand Paul, of all people, actually had a pretty reasonable alternative to the 2019 bill [1] that took a different approach: nurses were simply excluded from the annual quota.

[1]: https://www.cato.org/blog/sen-pauls-believe-act-raises-skill...

That is a band-aid fix, not a solution. Sure Congress can pass a bill to exclude nurses from the quota. Then do they pass another bill when the shortage is over, to prevent abuse? What if the year after there is a shortage of welders? Should companies rely on Congressional action every few months and for every profession?

You're right, and since the H1-B has effectively been "captured" by west coast tech companies, there are only a small handful of Senators that care to really fix it.

Perhaps the best band-aid fix is to add H1-B quotas by state, because then you might end up getting enough support throughout the nation for an actual solution. The military industrial complex has a lesson for us to learn?

That's not necessarily true. In determining priority categories, Congress is free to delegate that power to USCIS, the Secretary of Labor or another official or agency.

It's worth nothing that all H1Bs are technically priority occupations. Part of the process is to receive a labor certification that demonstrates you, as an employer, were unable to fill the position with a US citizen or permanent resident.

That itself is a whole can of worms because the system is heavily gamed to ensure that many such positions remain technically unfulfillable locally. For example, advertising such jobs where people are unlikely to find them and apply for them (eg in newspapers).

Now for big tech jobs, that need is genuine. For the body shops, it isn't. Despite attempts in the system to ensure such jobs are paid a fair market wage, they are not. The only people who take them are those Indian nationals who are so desperate to emigrate to the United States that they are willing to endure pseudo-indentured servitude for possibly decades if they and their family can have a better life.

That's a noble goal to be sure but we shouldn't enable employers to take advantage of them so. Even worse, in doing so, they're costing genuinely good jobs in big tech because of the lottery system.

I personally don't see this as a problem. If you cannot afford to pay for the workers you need then something is wrong with your business model and you need to fix it or the community (read:voters) need to deal with not having your service. In the case of a rural hospital it's a combination of several things within the US healthcare system being completely messed up, but shoving H-1B workers in to plaster over the problems is not the solution we need.

If there are more prospective immigrants each year who are qualified for US jobs paying (say) $250k+ than the total number of available slots, that’s a pretty clear and unambiguous signal that the cap should be raised. Really I don’t see a reason to have any cap whatsoever on immigrants with that level of earning potential as long as appropriate anti-abuse measures are put in place.

As far as 4 goes, ratios are a better solution to the body shop problem. There’s no need to even limit the number of work visas granted so long as the companies that are able to hire foreigners also hire the requisite number of Americans in similar positions.

There are a number of other advantages to this too. For one, it helps immigrants integrate better the more Americans they end up working with. The current system can result in silos where immigrants mostly work with other immigrants. And it helps Americans to work alongside skilled workers by giving them increased learning opportunities. It also works better for lower-paid skilled positions like nurses and scientists who don’t have to compete with higher-paid tech workers for visas.

I’m okay with giving an unlimited number of visas (background checks required) to any company that employs at least 70% Americans in each salary band. At worst, it creates an incentive to hire unqualified Americans just to get access to foreign talent, which is still a win for this country.

> This can mean that children who turn 18 may need to leave the US and return to a country they have possibly never known. This is barbaric and inhumane;

I would rather suggest to change

> 3. H1B visas are for 3 years and can be renewed once, for a total of 6 years. [...] But if you have a pending green card application you can stay indefinitely;

to "You didn't get a green card in this timeframe? Bad luck - go home." This would solve the mentioned problem with children and also the mentioned problem

> 5. [...] it is a modern form of indentured servitude. The employee can't leave nor complain about conditions because then they lose their application and have to return home;

> You didn't get a green card in this timeframe? Bad luck - go home."

Please excuse an uninformed question, but does anyone get a green card within that timeframe?

Yes, it's not hard to do. Marry an American and it will take much less than 9 years to get a green card, if you want one.

What if one is already married? Or in a relationship with a non American?

Then it is subject to the same bottleneck as described earlier, which is greater than nonzero.

I'm not OP or GP, but that was my interpretation.

I know. I am criticizing OP on suggesting that it is not hard to immigrate to the USA. As if it is even a worthwhile option to suggest that people leave their families and marry Americans.

H1B visas should also have a per-country cap. Having a within-country male gender cap would also be useful, to encouraging overall equality and diversity in the immigration intake.

And yet, somehow, you seem to be saying that inflicting foreign immigrants who may or may not choose to make any effort to assimilate at all is somehow not "barbaric and inhumane" treatment to the millions of existing US citizens (and workers) who aren't particularly thrilled with having their cultures "fundamentally transformed"... Only natives born of at least one legal US citizen parent have a right to be here, no one else does.

> This can mean that children who turn 18 may need to leave the US and return to a country they have possibly never known. This is barbaric and inhumane;

Why don’t the parents move back with their 18 year old so they are not alone?

People move to countries they do not know all the time.

If you come to the US on an H1B and a teenager it will also happen

Was it inhumane to bring the teenager to a country they did not know?

> If when granted a green card you have children under the age of 18 they automatically become permanent residents. After that, they don't. This can mean that children who turn 18 may need to leave the US and return to a country they have possibly never known. This is barbaric and inhumane;

I disagree with you, it put the young adult (it’s 21 and not a 18 I think) in a complicated situation. However H1–B was never voted to be a path towards permanent residency but as a three-years work visa, the parents should take this into account from the beginning

Two counterpoints:

First, the H1B visa in particular is classified by law and by USCIS as an immigrant intent visa. That is to say that it's not incompatible with having intention to immigrate to the United States. Put another way: this specific case was thought about and included in the visa system so you can't argue it wasn't the intent. It explicitly was.

Second, there's no reason why someone should be in work visa limbo for 20 years. That's by choice (of the US government). Having made that choice, you're somewhat responsible for the consequences. That includes not deporting people to a country they may have no memory of and may not even speak the language.

This same issue is relevant to DACA recipients (aka "Dreamers") who are typically children who through no choice of their own were brought to the United States as young children and know nowhere else as their home. It is cruel and unreasonable to deport such people to countries they have never known.