There is an argument that the purpose of the program is to provide skilled labor which is beneficial to the economy, beyond just, but including the domestic employment rate.

I’m not sure that’s what the H-1B program is doing in practice here, it probably is replacing many skilled American born workers. But at least in theory it can both be true that domestic worker unemployment has gone up, but that contracting the program risks the global competitiveness of major US companies that net employ US workers. More analysis is probably warranted.

> and high unemployment.

I didn't see where that was shown in the chart.

All I see is an assertion that "often at the expense of recent American CS grads.", and while I do believe I saw reporting that new grads are facing higher unemployment, I didn't see anything related specifically to CS grads, and, further, I haven't seen any data pointing out that H1Bs are taking entry level jobs. At least my experience has been that H1B are often in more senior roles and entry level jobs that require advanced degrees.

I'm not saying that it's not the case that there is a misalignment with the number of H1Bs and the current employment situation, but there doesn't seem to be enough data here to fully flesh out this argument without some fairly major assumptions being applied.

You seriously think that in the period of 2011 to, say 2021, there wasn't a massive labour shortage in tech hiring?