There is some exploitation that happens, but by and large people are going to pay market rate +-15%, minus administrative costs. Administrative costs for hiring immigrants are extremely high, so it makes sense that their wages might be a bit less. (The best way to raise their wages is to reduce the administrative costs.)
The system as it is structured right now is basically designed as a foreign aid program. It encourages foreigners to come to the US, get a degree, work for a few years while saving a lot of money, then go home and invest it in building a new business not in this country.
They are taking money from their home country and spending it in the US. It is like anti-foreign aid.
From the perspective of the students, yes, there is a financial transfer to the U.S. However, from national perspective, there is an economic transfer to the other nation. The U.S. university system represents the product of decades (centuries in some cases) of public and private investment. Foreign students and the societies they return to get the benefit of that investment - a better educated than could be trained locally - without having made it themselves. Hence, an economic transfer from the US to the other nation.
Having these type of students go back is not a lose. In fact they bring with them a demand for American goods, and culture.
I think it would probably be better for everyone if we streamlined the process of transitioning from an H1B to permanent residency, and it would definitely be better for the US economy.
The academic literature* shows much, much larger productivity and income gains to those who migrate to richer countries than any negative effect to native workers. Even if an influx of immigrants depressed some existing Americans' wages by a small amount, that delta would only pale in comparison to how much better of the immigrants would be.
Do you oppose efforts to educate more American's as computer scientists? This too would "depress" the wages of existing computer scientists but you would (hopefully) find it abhorrent if someone used your "wage depression" logic to stop teaching CS in inner-city schools.
Unless you think that the lives of non-American's are not worth considering, these hugely positive impacts of immigration should be part of your calculation.
* http://www.ssc.wisc.edu/~jkennan/research/OpenBorders.pdf?ne... http://www.cgdev.org/files/1425376_file_Clemens_Economics_an...
Frequently calls for equality are made by those who imagine their own situation could not possibly worsen; it's always some anonymous others who will pay.
Do you honestly think there would have been a national uproar against Disney if they'd asked their employees to train other Americans?
Try replacing "foreign H1B worker" with "person of another skin color" and see if your arguments don't sound abhorrent. If you think the later sounds racist, the former is xenophobic.
>> it's always some anonymous others who will pay
Couldn't agree more. In the case of immigration and labor policy, the anonymous others who pay are those that didn't have the good fortune to be born in this country.
It is probably noble to say that you would personally hand your own job over to somebody else. But of course it is never framed that way even though that is what is actually happening.