[narendranag]

Consider this: There are two types of H1Bs in the US. I'm in India, and I have a bunch of friends who went to grad school in the US and were then hired to work at different companies.

The only visa that they get is the H1-B. So, they can't start-up a business of their own, or go work at a start-up. And I'm not sure they're taking American jobs. They get paid the same as US citizens (trust me, they care :)

Then there are the IT chaps who get sent to the US as part of an outsourcing contract. The guys themselves don't get hired — the company they work for (Infosys, TCS etc.) is contracted to do some work and they send a bunch of guys over.

It's called the software services industry and they have positioned themselves as exporters of software in India. In recent times, this has come under some scrutiny, with some sections arguing that they are exporting people and not software. But the projects that they get can be really shitty — maintaining legacy Cobol code and Oracle 1 databases. I don't know if that's work that most Americans will be willing to take.

PS: I have never traveled to the US on an H1B. And I have never worked for any software services company.

EDIT: for typos