[stale2002]

Would you rather someone with NO valuable skills be brought in to the US and jobs for much poorer people be driven down in wages?

Assuming that SOMEONES job has to receive that wage pressure, who better than highly paid workers?

[waisbrot]

That's a pretty weird assumption. There's not any direct relationship between the number of software engineering jobs and the number of (e.g.) housing construction jobs.

[stale2002]

We let X people into the country every year.

The question is WHICH X people should we let in. Should we let in X low skilled workers or X high skilled workers?

You could perhaps make the argument that the US should lower the TOTAL amount of people let into the country.

But if that is your argument, then there is no point in talking about software engineers. You should be worried about the construction workers wages that are being reduced.