[outworlder]

What they are trying to protect is US citizens from losing their jobs (or getting lesser wages) due to a sudden availability of cheaper labor. So, the supply is restricted. It's not exactly xenophobia, it is market control.

I bet a lot of opposition would disappear overnight if foreign workers could only be hired at a very high high salary level. Of course, go too high and you'll get complaints from US citizens that are not yet at that level. But I guess that would be a minority.

Level the playing field (at least in wages), and there's much less of an excuse to restrict immigration. After all, if an immigrant with no networking, who doesn't have English as his native language and a different culture, and has to jump through a lot of hoops just to be able to legally move and work in the country (a process that can take months), if he can just walk in and steal your job, then there was something wrong about your job security in the first place.

The problem is how to define what a [high|fair] wage would be at a given location and industry.