> How do you know they are on par for the role if you are part of the program intended (by the detractors) to push down wages for everybody?

Because they know their salary, and what is supposed to be for their role?

some people believe that mere presence of the program itself is driving the wages down which is… funny…

Well, the way program exists now, it's utilized by two kinds of companies:

1) Someone like Verizon that uses it for cheap labor

2) Someone like Netflix that wants to hire good engineers

The way the program works now (before those changes?), it's much easier for group 1 to fill its positions via staffing agencies overseas. That's true even if a company from group 2 already know who they want to hire, since it's a lottery system.

Would be easier if this were two different visas (or program got revamped in a way that it actually works as it's sold to public), but we can't have "Cheap Human Labor Visa" for various reasons.

every problem has a solution except in America where what we THINK is a problem (and discuss ad naseum on HM) is there by design. Group 1’s lobbyist are paying A LOT more than Group 2 - hence they get the most benefit out of the program. it’ll be interesting to see next four years, I suspect the program will at minimum triple

Yup, exactly this.