My small 55 person company is survivng thanks to H1Bs. We struggled to find a dba and a critical dev for years, and found a couple of good H1B candidates.
Saying that this program only benefits billionaires is a bit absurd.
You struggled because you couldn't afford the talent you needed, the talent that I'm sure already existed in the country. It's not a talent shortage, it's a cost issue.
Demand doesn't suddenly make new talent appear within a couple months/1-3 years for non-trivial fields. Sure, longer term it might lead to more people appearing on the market. But till then companies need people to fill the gaps - in some areas the alternatives are giving up on projects (great, not what you wanted) or hiring from competing companies till one side gives up.
To me it seems fairly absurd to assume that there's enough american workers in every field to fill every post, even with really "generous" salaries. Even if you only take the "worthwhile" projects into account.
Obviously that does not apply for fields where you can essentially train a mid-level university graduate up to par within a couple months.
My small 55 person company is survivng thanks to H1Bs. We struggled to find a dba and a critical dev for years, and found a couple of good H1B candidates.
Saying that this program only benefits billionaires is a bit absurd.