Exactly. The first group are basically being exploited by a body shop that puts in 10X the number of applications vs spots that they need, but always still get

Exactly. The first group are basically being exploited by a body shop that puts in 10X the number of applications vs spots that they need, but always still gets lots of awards. They then are able to leverage the fact they flooded the pool to carry out visa arbitrage - they have something employees want, and leverage that, even though that things is really public government property (visa) and so shouldn't be a privately leveraged. Almost all the H1B horror stories are from these shops (often they have related outsource arms) - "I had to train my replacement and they sent my job overseas using H1B visas". You can see how trump got elected when dems were defending this as good for US workers. The second group are folks who really really need employees. They are and will hire absolutely any US worker who meets their criteria (it's a lot easier - fewer hoops to jump through) and are willing to hire an H1B eligible employee if they run out of pipeline on US based folks. These tend to be truly higher skill jobs. The US is taking the cream of other countries investments in education etc etc with the folks - I can't imagine this is bad for the US in any way. What is frustrating from one perspective though is that the reactionary defense of H1B means that lots of group 1 are still allowed to play their games. Seriously, crack down big time on group one. Keep same number of folks coming, and loosen up on group 2 - Level 2+ wages, masters degree US should be first in line.