Maybe if someone is “amazing” you should get them a green card.
If my superiors would give me extra unexpected budget I’d be happy to. But if I find a citizen that is just as good as my opt employee, my only path forward is to either fire the opt or let them continue on the team but not submit their GC application (because I have to swear I couldn’t find a citizen that is just as good)
To extend the visa they have to swear they couldn't find a citizen to do this job, and aren't willing to lie.
If the interview process yields a US person equally qualified, GP can’t (and doesn’t) certify the guest worker’s green card application. But that doesn’t mean they have to fire them and send them home early: they can let the guest worker work out their contract if they want to (which they probably do, it probably pays well compared to other options). And an experienced, already-trained, good employee is probably more valuable to the business than an immediate, unplanned new hire anyway.
So yes, certainly screwed up incentives—but I don’t see how it would be better to require guest workers to put their jobs in immediate jeopardy just to apply for permanent residency.
It'd be fabulous if this was an option, but green card applications have all sorts of caps and aren't even just "wait in a line for N years." They are random every year and every year you fail to get approved you get no closer to being approved.
The effect is that you can have excellent engineers who've been in the US for a decade+ who are still in this liminal space where they don't have legal permanent residency.
Strikes again