One of the arguments I see repeated here against hiring H1-B junior developers is that they:
a) Aren't qualified as the best and brightest since they're still inexperienced
b) Took a university seat from an American citizen
[1] Firstly, my response to these is going to treat the $65k/year as a soon-to-be-solved problem. It's making the whole program look bad at the expense of talented people and the American economy, and luckily has bi-partisan support for reform.
I want to offer a thought. As a country, we want the world's greatest minds to reside here. Those minds generate ideas, make local companies stronger and, at the most basic level, generate tax revenue greater than the average citizen. Creating a pipeline to bring in the best minds in the world is a net benefit for US citizens. Giving up /some/ university seats to attract the brightest from other countries makes sense. Giving up /some/ entry level roles to retaining those minds in the country, to which we've already lent our world-leading educational institutions to, also makes sense.
I've been in a hiring position with a Global 500 company that considers H1-B applicants. At no point during any of my conversations with other hiring managers did we ever consider "Oh, let's take that applicant, they'll cost less because of their Visa." If anything, some folks might hold off because they don't want to deal with the uncertainty of losing a key employee because of a lottery. If companies wanted cheap labor, they'd just use outsourcing. So it's possible H1-B applicants (excepting cheap consultants, see [1]) have a higher bar to clear than citizen/resident candidates.
The interesting point here, is that there's 3 types of nationalism in this discussion and I find it funny that we're not self aware about it (apologies, my bias is apparent in my descriptions):
1) Protectionist nationalism - "This is America and AMERICAN people born [or naturalized] here deserve our companies' jobs."
2) Opportunist nationalism - "America and its citizens as a whole are better off with more high-skilled H1-B immigrants because we can take the skilled horsepower other countries would otherwise possess."
3) Anti-nationalism - I don't see this one mentioned much, but what happens to the countries America is soaking up talent /from/? Is it a good thing that one country attracts the brightest from all around the world, rather than distributing skill evenly?
My personal opinions have hovered around type 2 (opportunist nationalism). I've considered type 3 and think it deserves more consideration. Does anyone have data on what happens to the countries America sources talent from? Is this one of those magic win-win scenarios, or the more intuitive win-lose?
Apologies, this is lightly edited as it's long-winded and during work hours.