It was never meant as a way to attract highly skilled workers as a goal. Its entire premise was to attract skilled workers when there was a shortage of workers

It was never meant as a way to attract highly skilled workers as a goal. Its entire premise was to attract skilled workers when there was a shortage of workers or inability to augment the national labor pool to meet requirements. I want to clarify this on purpose. For instance, before our current system (which was lobbied for to add loopholes around what qualifies for talent shortage in the late 80s / early 90s) the H1B program was used for truly unique situations, like hiring Medical Doctors, where you could demonstrate that the US national labor pool couldn't fulfill the demand and additional training would not work either. In 1990 they changed the criteria for what constitutes a "shortage of talent" allowing broad definitions and weak justifications, and thats when the explosion by the tech industry hiring H1Bs took hold in earnest