[steevenwee]

'I still maintain this - any immigrant system that allows corporations to decide who gets to come here is flawed.'

Corporations ARE the workforce market, which should indicate what kind of workforce is needed. It can only go from employer to employee, not vice versa. You can also look at that from company's perspective: You not only paid for someone's visa but also went through all the paperwork and then the person leaves in a month, just because he got a bigger offer. This should somehow work in both directions.

[geebee]

Wow, do I ever disagree with you. I'm not a market fundamentalist, but supply and demand are still relevant concepts here. The market would demand far more developers at $50,000 than the market would supply. It would be the opposite at $250,000 (maybe... there would still be a lot of demand at that level). If corporations can't hire on there terms and conditions they offer, they need to sweeten the pot. If I try to hire a top lawyer at 50k a year and a large open office, people will say "uh, you need to offer more money and a better office." They don't say "oh, there's a shortage of lawyers, so clearly you need to have the power to bestow US residency and worker rights, and remain in control of them, to coerce an immigrant into taking that job"!

As for the company's perspective, honestly, I couldn't care one whit. If you can't offer competitive wages and working conditions, that means the worker has found a higher value role somewhere else. Why on early would I, or anyone really, have any interest in helping a corporation force an individual to remain in a lower value job? It's a basic human rights issue as far as I'm concerned, but you know, there's a reason human freedom and generally free markets often go together. No, I'm not a market fundamentalist, but the freedom choose where and how you will work seems pretty basic to me.

[steevenwee]

Wasn't disagreeing with that, just looking at reality. This visa was meant for corporations to be able to get the talent they're unable to find in the US. Not for opening US workforce market for the entire world. Thus it is one-sided.

Don't get me wrong, I'm in the US on a work visa and would be happy to have jobs market completely open for me.