I think you're overly focused on global economics.
H1B abuse presents local economic problems. Wages for programmers working in San Francisco are higher than wages for the same programmers in, say, Lexington, both are higher than China, and all are related to local cost of living.
If a company abuses H1Bs to import cheap programmers from China to San Francisco and keep paying them Chinese rates, San Francisco programmer wages are depressed and SF programmers are disadvantaged relative to the entire local San Francisco economy.
Note I keep saying "abuse". The problem people fear with H1Bs is that their nature opens them to abuse. Not abuse by the immigrant programmers, but abuse by the corporations employing them, which can use the conditions of the H1B program to essentially hold immigrant workers hostage in below-market-rate jobs.
I think you'll find that if you talk to programmers reasonably informed about the nature of H1B visas, most will have no general objection at all to programmers immigrating to the US from China, India, or anywhere else. Only to the particular circumstances of the H1B program, which break local market forces.
This is something I have been thinking a lot about recently since I just started a new job at a well known software company. Of the 9 people on my team, I am one of 3 that is NOT working on an H1B visa. This ratio seems typical company wide, if I had to guess.
I think as a business it makes sense to take advantage of this loophole, but obviously as a developer my wages are being suppressed.
I say either get rid of the H1B program (it's obviously a price issue and not a talent issue) or modify it to give them a fast track to citizenship or some other status that allows them to change jobs.
Outsourcing manufacturing also depresses local salaries. It's just that it's not very visible anymore. I think it's fair to assume that, out of all unemployed Americans, there are some who would happily take a factory job paying $X; but $X is too high compared to the equivalent Chinese worker salary.
I totally understand that some programmers feel more competition is not in their best interest. If they would just say they are protecting their turf, then I'd understand. Doctors and lawyers limit the number of licenses, certain trades restrict their jobs to unionized workers, etc.
I'm just wondering if their objections have other grounds, e.g. moral or public policy principles, and in that case whether those principles would apply to e.g. blue collar workers (or phone technical support, or farm workers etc), and whether they would be willing to pay more for US-made products in order to support American-based manufacturing.
> If a company abuses H1Bs to import cheap programmers from China to San Francisco and keep paying them Chinese rates,
I think you're resorting to unnecessary hyperbole here. There's public data on H1B salaries and they're far above median Chinese salaries.
In any case, my question above concedes the assumption that programmer salaries are depressed to some extent.
> Outsourcing manufacturing also depresses local salaries.
No, it moves jobs, generally entire categories of jobs, to lower-cost areas. If someone wishes to continue working in that type of job, they must do it in a place with lower cost of living.
> I totally understand that some programmers feel more competition is not in their best interest.
That has nothing to do with anything I said, and in fact I pretty clearly articulated that such a view has nothing to do with the fear some people have of the H1B program.
> I think you're resorting to unnecessary hyperbole here.
I think you're reading things into my comment that are not there, because you wrongly assume I oppose H1B visas.
H1B abuse presents local economic problems. Wages for programmers working in San Francisco are higher than wages for the same programmers in, say, Lexington, both are higher than China, and all are related to local cost of living.
If a company abuses H1Bs to import cheap programmers from China to San Francisco and keep paying them Chinese rates, San Francisco programmer wages are depressed and SF programmers are disadvantaged relative to the entire local San Francisco economy.
Note I keep saying "abuse". The problem people fear with H1Bs is that their nature opens them to abuse. Not abuse by the immigrant programmers, but abuse by the corporations employing them, which can use the conditions of the H1B program to essentially hold immigrant workers hostage in below-market-rate jobs.
I think you'll find that if you talk to programmers reasonably informed about the nature of H1B visas, most will have no general objection at all to programmers immigrating to the US from China, India, or anywhere else. Only to the particular circumstances of the H1B program, which break local market forces.