As a former H1-B (coming from France, and now living in Japan) who used to work in a Hedge Fund in NYC, I would say that there are three factors at play: • an

As a former H1-B (coming from France, and now living in Japan) who used to work in a Hedge Fund in NYC, I would say that there are three factors at play: • an H1-B holder doesn't have much leverage for negotiation if she really wants to stay in the US, as resigning (or be let go) foolishly means going back home, • US salaries in IT jobs are much much higher than salaries for equivalent positions in Europe, so even if you are making less than Americans you are usually happy, • more personal and somewhat related to the first point: foreigners (at least the non native english speaker ones) tend to stick with other foreigners. Not by choice, it tends to happen very naturally from what I observed, and in my opinion has a lot to do with speaking abilities. If you don't know American workers, you don't know their salaries, so it's somewhat harder to know your actual market value. And by the time you expand your network to American people you are well under way to get your Green Card...