Even if it were the case, does it matter? Competition is becoming increasingly globalized. I don't think that's inherently a bad thing. Protectionism in the form of onerous immigration regulations is a losing battle and only delays the inevitable.
The same can be said of building anything. Towns wither, companies close, empires collapse, etc. "Delaying the inevitable" is what a society is all about.
But more importantly, thinking of societal issues as "inevitable" is a regression to the magical pre-political thinking of societies before democracy.
There's nothing "inevitable" about how the world works: people, and their actions, make stuff happen or not happen.
As for competition becoming "increasingly globalized" is a bad thing, because it is a race to the bottom. It's not even good for countries at the bottom, because it makes their position transient and will turn around to destroy them as soon as they start to rise.
What we need to do is build a global middle class and protect middle class where it exists, so that more people can afford products and the economy marches on for more companies and larger endeavours, instead of letting an even smaller number of companies and people profit enormously short term by destroying their future customer base. After all their owners and managers won't be around in 30-50 years, be societies affected by their actions will be.
It's in the best interest of the person who has to compete with the immigrant, but it's not in the best interest of anyone else - citizen or otherwise. Immigration benefits other citizens in the form of cheaper products and services. Immigration also benefits the immigrant (if it didn't, they wouldn't be trying to get in).
This issue is somewhat personal for me because I have foreign friends who are good engineers and would like to work here, but can't because of the regulations.
> It is not protectionism at all to level the playing field
This isn't leveling the playing field, this is refusing to let other (potentially better) players on the field because we have less capable players (who happened to be here first).
The only purpose of H1B the legal construct is to erode workers rights.
I'm acquainted with a state Senator. He's a well meaning guy, but he acknowledges just what a corrupting effect the truckloads of money has on national politics.
I've read that there are over 10,000 pages to Obamacare. Who wrote all that? How much insight into the health care field does it take to put in so much detail? Who else could have possibly written it other than the health care field itself?
We talk about regulatory capture like it's some horrific thing akin to Stalinism. But it's reality, today, in every single economic field that's more complex than hairdressing. How could we possibly provide meaningful oversight over the passing of a bill that fills a shelf? The only thing we can do is debate meaningless talking points that don't address the critical reality. Industries are regulating themselves, and we're just letting them frame the discussion while they sell out the public under our very noses.
The widely-available bill[1], which takes all of five seconds to find with Google, is 906 pages with legislative (huge margins) formatting. Consider not getting your "facts" from people with an axe to grind.
http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-111hr3590enr/pdf/BILLS-11...
Immigrants send money home (out of our economy). Companies may produce more/cheaper, resulting in possibly lower prices. But maybe they just spend the extra revenue lobbying Congress for preferential treatment. Maybe it results in more money shipped offshore to tax havens.
And if indeed immigrants are just cheaper replacements for their American counterparts, it takes away money (which, remember, is equivalent to speech) from citizens of this country.
The thing is, you cannot wish or legislate away the existence of skilled labor from outside the country.
If this worked, then we wouldn't be having this visa discussion.
So is maximizing profit by replacing expensive workers with less expensive ones from abroad. At some moment the situation becomes untenable, causing a social rupture and eventual reorganization, sometimes very painfully.