Every company should do this to help employees on H1B that are laid off.
The standard terms are one of the horrific things about US immigration policy; suddenly uprooting families including kids attending school in the US.
Occam's razor can probably finesse your logic on this one. You are adding too much complexity to the origin's of H1B to push your narrative.
There's been no push to overhaul H1B as it has little political value for the politicians. I see what people are frustrated about especially those on H1B but I don't think it is some cynical reason by the politicians - its more that it has little to gain for them.
It's a non-voting group of people and it isn't a large enough issue for any of their voting base.
It is not some weird theory about keeping H1B an underclass and putting downwards pressure on domestic employees.
But it will cause them a loss from the big donors that do benefit from H1-B people having less negotiating power, which is why the cynicism is warranted.
“Occam’s razor” is for situations where something is happening unintentionally. There exists intention here, however indirect.
Liberal economic elites would have preferred unrestricted, laissez-faire access to technically skilled immigrant labor rather than being forced to deal with the caps, lotteries, and bureaucracy associated with the H1B program.
Why would they support H1-B then? It is literally increasing supply of workers who have less negotiating power than the “mass of people” I presume you are referring to. Surely they would be better off with immigrants whose legal status was not tied to employers.
>Relatively open ended immigration programs with minimal restrictions are defensible, but this caste system is not.
Yes, that was my point. The only population benefiting from H1-Bs reduced negotiating power due to their immigration rules is business owners.
It restricts the number of workers that are able to work in the U.S., and forces companies to jump through hoops to hire them. The idea was that companies would be forced to hire American workers whenever they were available, and only rely on foreign workers as a fallback. Obviously corporations were able to somewhat neuter the law so that it wasn't as much of an obstacle as it was sold as.
> less negotiating power
Protectionists were convinced that foreign workers would undercut them by working harder for less money in worse conditions; the idea of foreign workers actually helping improve working conditions would have sounded ridiculous (if not faintly sinister) to them.
Restricting workers would be denying them entry into the country to work in the first place. And forcing companies to jump through hoops simply means instead of lower paying employers taking advantage of the visa, higher paying employers take advantage. Either way, there is going to be an increase in labor supply of people willing to work for lower wages (since they cannot shop for other employers), and that negatively effects all workers.
Personally, I find the health benefits extension to be much more meaningful