H-1B visa fraud alive and well amid anti-abuse efforts

I mean you probably are missing a bunch of details.

Being married doesn't automatically grant you citizenship. It does give a way to apply for a green card (IIRC, no caps on this path so it's "easy") which then gives a path to citizenship (naturalization).

So; no-duh if the guy's wife is russian she can be deported; she's probably overstayed her visa while caring for the guy.

Me Mum was British[0], but had to get US citizenship, in order to bring in her mother, for final years care.

She was pissed off.

[0] https://cmarshall.com/miscellaneous/SheilaMarshall.htm

I am categorizing them because each have their own background. For the law it is one big bucket.

The theory is that there is enough demand and not enough supply of people to fill this demand. In practice there is a lot of nuance. It is a messy outdated system that is being stretched and abused.

Some of them are: US colleges like foreign students due to the money they bring in. This is not going to stop. H1B employees in the third and fourth categories are paid less compared to the US employees and even compared to the first category. So there is an intrinsic demand. These companies also don’t intend to hire US workers. They “prefer” foreign workers due to a variety of reasons, some in the legal grey area, some not legal. Some are: These employees are there to help run the offshore workforce so they want someone who understands the culture and work with them, even better if this is somewhere who was actually offshore and can come to the US and act as a bridge. They also use this as an incentive for the employees in India and elsewhere. They don’t want to pay more. Like I said some are in the legal grey area and use loopholes. There is a recent lawsuit against TCS related to this. These jobs are not going to stop unless US companies stop outsourcing because these jobs (and they being fulfilled by foreign workers) are fundamental to how the outsourcing model is run by these companies.

My personal opinion is the first and second categories do not suppress jobs and salaries of US workers. These companies pay the same for both and a lot of times actually spend a net higher amount of money on the foreign workers due to the H1B overhead and fees involved (a fee when applying, renewals every 3 years, applying for green card etc). These employees also tend to be good at what they do.

The third is where the vast majority of suppression comes from. And the fourth is where the vast majority of skirting the law happens.

Well, not all specialties pay the same so it'd be problematic if some of the worse paying ones had a bunch of unfilled spots while higher ones didn't. There isn't a (financial) incentive to quit your better paying job to work a less paying one.

I think a better solution is just a "tariff" where a company has to pay an additional 50% of the total compensation to the government. Then if you could fill the spot with an american you'd want to because it saves you a ton of money; but if you actually can't find somebody (at your offered price) then you still have the option of offering a visa.

It's only a counter argument if you make an assumption that H1-B program is designed to bring, specifically, healthcare or pharma workers.

Unless you can point to a reason why law of supply and demand was breached, high salaries reflect high demand vs. low supply and low salaries reflect low demand vs. high supply.

My understanding is that healthcare and pharma are not exactly poor industries so if they don't pay their highly skilled workers a lot of money, the most likely explanation is that there's abundance of those workers.

What follows from that is that we don't need to import them from abroad.

And that logic generalizes to all industries hence it really is that simple as letting in those who can score the highest salaries.

It aligns the interests of U.S. in general (highly paid workers put way more into taxes than they get back in benefits) with the interests of the companies.

It's hard to game, simple to apply and trivial to verify (once you issue SSN you check with IRS once a year if they are really paid what the company said it will pay). And if companies try some fraud they are now in the business of tax fraud.

It boggles the mind that this is not a rule applied by all governments in the world. Unless, of course, you understand that government is not exactly pre-occupied with doing the best thing for the country but with doing the best thing for themselves. All those speeches you can give, on both sides, about immigration!