H1-B Infographic -- Myths versus Facts?

(here's the direct link to Visual.ly: http://visual.ly/who-are-h-1bs)

H1-B Infographic -- Myths versus Facts?
thumbnails.visually.netdna-cdn.com

"Immigrants started 28% of all new US businesses." This despite all the obstacles and issues with doing so (speaking from first-hand experience!)

I think this slide show makes some important points. However, I don't really like the "myth vs fact" approach to something that I think is actually pretty complicated. I also think it leans toward straw man representations of "myth" in some of these slides.

Case in point - the slide that presents a "myth" that H1B holders are paid less than their US counterparts, countered by a "fact" that they are paid about 10% more.

That's a relevant data point, to be sure, but it hardly resolves the issue. The very previous slide points out that H1B workers are more likely to have graduate degrees than Americans. The next slide shows that H1B holders earn only 10% more than their US counterparts. And in engineering, they earn slightly less. This data could be used to argue that the H1B plan is actually diminishing the premium paid for a graduate degree and perhaps suppressing the market signals that would induce more US born workers to pursue these graduate degrees. And this might very well be exactly what has caused the problem addressed two slides down, that US students aren't pursuing enough degrees in engineering (to say nothing of the differences in what counts as an "engineering" degree in the US and in China).

I'm not saying that there aren't great arguments to be made in favor of increasing skilled immigration. But it's far more complicated than a "myth vs fact" chart.