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> Those are pretty close to the median in aggregate.

Pretty close to the median?

Aren't these H1-B visas supposed to be for specialists? To bring in the best and brightest?

Compared to average workers, software engineers are specialists. H1B holders are often brighter than their citizen counterparts by at least one objective measure: advanced degrees holding. It's very hard to find US citizens with advanced degrees who can code well and understand computer science.

Not all H1B holders have advanced degrees, and the reason some of them do is because that’s one of the immigration pathways —- pay for a 1-2-year Master’s degree so you get a better chance of landing an H1B after you graduate. Most citizens don’t go for advanced degree because there’s no utility in them, and not because they aren’t smart.

I know this. But it is a measurable differentiator in qualification that H1Bs are way more likely to have than citizens. Many young men don't see the utility in college compared to women in the the US, but employers do.

Then it’s all the more difficult to explain why such “advanced” applicants would accept low salaries. Unless, of course, we accept the inevitable conclusion that companies are using foreign labor to suppress domestic wages.

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