I agree with your edit. This is my big problem with the H1B visa. But how is what you are describing different from general immigration then? The US takes in

I agree with your edit. This is my big problem with the H1B visa. But how is what you are describing different from general immigration then? The US takes in approximately 1.2 million immigrants a year, and these immigrants are (by and large) free to pursue a career path in response to their personal interests and market signals. If they like flexibility, career stability, and helping people, they might choose to become a dental hygienist (paid at the median almost as well as a software developer in San Francisco). They might go to med school, sell real estate, open a sandwich shop, or try to make a go of it as an artist. If they like coding but don't want to work in a large open office with back visibility, micromanagement through scrum, age out at 35, and spend most of their time debugging javascript to get the drop down menus on the corporate payroll site to display properly, well, then they may decide to code as a hobby and do something else, or demand a lot more money, at least. My problem with the H1B is that it allows employers to coerce employees into these jobs, under the notion that there is a shortage. Well, maybe there's a "shortage" because these are unpleasant jobs, or because the people who are capable of doing these jobs are also capable of doing other, better paid jobs with better working conditions. As long as employers can coerce people into these jobs by controlling their right to live and work int he US, they will remain unpleasant and/or underpaid jobs, because the market mechanisms that would improve them are subverted through corporate control of the immigration system. To me, what you're describing would be more akin to creating a random lottery and allowing in an extra 65,000 citizens, without a corporation telling them what educational path they are allowed to take, what whiteboard interview questions they are required to answer, what projects they are allowed to work on, or what city they are allowed to live in. You know, free citizens. That, I don't really have any problem with either. But personal freedom for immigrants is the opposite of the H1B.