H1-B quota should be linked to the Social safety net of their nations. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_mobility For e.g http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Caste_System to Indians http://www.rediff.com/business/slid...forced-to-sign-no-suicide-pledge/20110504.htm to Chinese
Some H1-B workers may be fine if they are only allowed to be here when there is a real shortage of local workers, this should include local workers with similar experience and skills are easily transferable. The problem here is the like of Microsoft using MASS IMPORTATION to create an excess of workers. This makes job seekers become job beggars with no negotiating power, and those with jobs are forced to worked more and more overtime w/o compensation in order to keep their jobs.
The corps have adapted already and simply move their operations to the countries offering the best value: labor / taxes / special incentives. Microsoft has 135,000 employees world wide in 139 countries. They are down from 65000 to 40,000 blue badge employees in the US all the rest are Foreign or Orange Badge contractors. Google has 26K employees with only 6300 in the US. Harley Davidson had 6300 employees, recently laid off 1100 and opened up operations in India. They also have expanded their Brazilian operations. Caterpillar had 104K employees and now are at 93k with over 50K outside of the US. H1B visas are not the problem... the corps are moving their operations offshore.
As explained in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diversity_Immigrant_Visa and http://www.rediff.com/news/2007/may/03touch.htm
The cost of labor is ultimately a capital cost so, we're talking about the same problem, albeit from different perspectives.
Apple would never have existed were it not for Wozniak. Unlike Jobs, who was kicked out of the company in the mid-80's, Woz has been an employee of Apple since Day 1 and still draws a paycheck today. What's more amazing about the recent Jobs fanaticism is that everyone's pretty much forgotten just how abysmal the NeXT failure was, which was entirely his baby.
Foreigners are people just like nationals. If they study harder, do they not deserve the better jobs? Is this country not a meltingpot of ethnicities? Face it: you snooze you lose. If you can't afford to live here go move to a cheaper country.
A comment like that can only come from someone who's an outsider. Be interesting to see how your perspective changes once "increased productivity" comes to your neck of the woods.