Dear Incumbent –
You’re dreaming if you think most foriegn nationals in the US make the same money the US citizens did/do. For H1B visas (the largest applicable class for us “technical professionals”) the employer has to show that they can’t hire US people for the job. The easiest and fastest way to make sure they can’t find “qualified” US people to take the job is to low-ball the salary they offer. There isn’t a shortage of engineers and programmers in the US. There’s a shortage of people with appropriate training, work experience and degrees who will work for $45,000 a year. There is, however, no shortage of people from India, Pakistan, Ireland, Poland, etc. who will come here for 6 years, do the job barely adequately in most cases, and live better than they could at home. Even with paying fees to the agency / recruiter who arranges a place to live, van pools (you can’t afford to keep a car on that salary – even if you could get a drivers’ license), language classes, posts a bond for your return ticket, etc. Right now almost all of my extended acquaintance who were making a tidy living as independent computer programmers are un- or seriously under-employed. H1B visas have driven the market price for that kind of skill to “can’t support my kids” levels.
For select people at a very high level, the deal is better. MBB’s almost certainly it won’t matter unless there are tax implications in your home country. But the Labor Department is NOT working primarily in the best interests of those who work for wages, and hasn’t almost since it was formed. They are working for the best interests of the government and business, not the individual who’s working for a living.
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