Everything is used to lower wages. Uber, waymo, doordash, LLMs, etc. all reduce wages. There is no requirement in the statute that it should not lower wages. Congress considered the tradeoff and decided that it was worth having the program. It is a minuscule number, btw. 85k per year, which given the size of the US economy should not even register anywhere in any discussions. In any case, these econ 101 discussions are beyond the scope here.
That brings us to
Americans are too dumb to get these jobs so we still need it:
Americans are not too dumb but we need H-1B anyway for reasons:
The cap is 85k, which is never exceeded, as that is a statutory limit. There are other cap exempt categories for non-profits and universities.
>That brings us to
It doesn't bring us to any of these conclusions. The vehicle for the change you seek is the legislature. Lobby Congress to change the law. You have a house rep and 2 state senators. Talk to them about your concerns.
>the vehicle for change you seek is the legislature
I never argued the fee was legal for reference. And oop must've forgotten that Congress cared about my concerns, thanks for the tip!
I don't know if protectionism is the right word.