Anecdata: That would have solved their problem entirely for some of my friends. I can easily think of a good handful of good engineers I know from college that

Anecdata: That would have solved their problem entirely for some of my friends. I can easily think of a good handful of good engineers I know from college that were disappointed to have to return to their home country when they could not find work sponsors. That's not to say that there aren't also the ones who's plan from the beginning was to return home, but for others the US had become their home. The common story that I heart was that employers were balking at the amount of risk and paperwork required to hire foreign employees.