I’ve followed this issue for a long time, the thing is at the end of the day the average American just doesn’t care very much what happens to tech workers.

There’s an underlying attitude of “serves those entitled nerds right” on both the political left and the right.

I feel that 2 simple rules would capture all the value of H1-Bs but naturally limit their abuses:

1. H-1Bs applications are ranked by total comp. 2 years of that comp is unconditional (no PIPs, no performance management, no excuses). I can see an argument to bucket this by industry.

2. Only job codes where the YoY median pay and total employment are currently at a 3 year high are eligible to receive H-1Bs.

The comp requirements would devastate the body farms. The unconditional comp will put major pressure on the system of working H1-Bs to the bone, and not thoroughly vetting those hires. Companies that layoff in the thousands, or layoff their highest paid (oldest) employees are simply poisoning the H-1B well for that industry. Deep cuts can't be made up with H1-Bs for 3 years or until all the layoffs have been recouped industry-wide.

Clearly something has to be done here. It's going to all crash and burn pretty soon.

Employers already need to prove that they can’t hire an American to do the job.

I agree. The cap should be adjusted to unemployment surveys by sector. If there's high unemployment in tech at the moment there should be simply no quota to hire from foreign countries until the labor market recovers.

You should probably do some research on how many of those ended up starting their own companies. And how many jobs they created.

After that you may want to rethink suspending new entries.