There's a straightforward solution here. Right now H-1Bs are a way for companies to lock in employees by leveraging the visa status.

I have also worked with amazing H1B visa people.

Just make sure they're actually talented.

It's kind of sad to see the accelerated downfall of your country.

Any suggestion that the program is dragging wages down instead of dragging wages up is not just misleading but factually wrong.

So sure, while the fewer jobs that they can fill could have higher wages (not a given, because lack of labor can stunt or kill companies) there could be much fewer people employed overall, which is clearly bad overall.

Of course, that assumes there is enough room for companies to grow. There are strong indications (e.g. the various labor and unemployment surveys) that this is the case in the US. In fact, there is a credible theory that the reason the US managed the inflation crisis so well was due to the immigration crisis.

I elaborated more (along with a couple of relevant studies) here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45308311

And how are “they” planning on determining who is “truly exceptional”? And what makes you think the “truly exceptional” ones are still going to have any interest in coming here when they see what happens to the people who the current regime deems “not exceptional”?

I sure as hell wouldn’t come to the US knowing I may be deported to a third world prison if I post the wrong thing online.

That's a weird definition for "middle class", there are only 65k H1b visas issued every year. If you really are talking about the middle 60% or whatever of all workers, immigrants on H1b's are irrelevant noise. At most, these visas might be seen to impact specific professions (tech in particular, lots of doctors too) that most people don't consider representative of the "middle class".

Can you please share your reading material that links H1B software engineers with decline in middle class jobs from this list?

It’s not because of the other jobs which the H1Bs aren’t even allowed to do abd have seen falling salaries and degrowth.

What do the most influential reformists want? The ones who set the extreme agenda that everyone else follows? As I understand it, right now the US is routinely enacting policies that the majority of citizens do not want; from this, could we surmise that the majority of people, and presumably thus the majority of reformists, will receive the extreme H1B policies that they don't want?

Most of the companies that are paying salaries could (and already do!) have offices in other jurisdictions where they could hire the same talent.

Better to bring this talent onshore, where the wages are taxed, than force these companies to hire from satellite offices?

It doesn't make much financial sense for companies to stop sourcing talent globally just because they can't be brought onshore, especially given enough time.

Purely anecdotal, but for me personally this wouldn't change who or how I hire, just the location.

Still, I can't help but feel a little bit of glee at all the tech companies who did their best to suck up to Trump, and now he stabs them in the back.

What is "mid level talent" though? you're not getting that data from H1B wage filings, they're factually under-reporting compensation.

Plenty of peeps are being much more factual below, compared to the gvt linguo that you are just rehashing rn

Now it's "we need to limit the volume" and "don't want to get rid of the truly exceptional immigration".

Forgive me if I am skeptical, especially in a world where ICE is rounding up classic "exceptional" immigrants like biology researchers, or South Korean experts setting up a factory.