As someone who had an H1 for a brief period myself, I think two changes can fix the whole problem: 1) Allow H1 holders to switch jobs to ANY qualifying company

As someone who had an H1 for a brief period myself, I think two changes can fix the whole problem: 1) Allow H1 holders to switch jobs to ANY qualifying company any time after 3 months and be legally ok as long as they work at same or higher pay until the visa expires. This will prevent companies abusing visa holders. But now we get companies who sell H1 visas. So to avoid that… 2) Sort job titles (categories) by descending salary (adjusted for location) and pick the top N qualified petitions. No more race to the bottom. Now it doesn’t matter if candidate is from CERN or fake-IIT. If a company is willing to pay above market rate even if the candidate can leave in 3 months, they are admitting that this job is not easy to fill locally - basically aligned with the spirit of the visa.