[ericye16]

It's very sad how illiberal hackernews gets when it comes to H-1B visas and immigration in general. People will say that they are concerned about the welfare of H-1B holders because they can't leave their jobs but I've literally never heard anyone suggest an improvement (better portability, etc). Instead all anyone talks about is how bad it is that they have to compete against people from around the world. I think people are just afraid of a true meritocracy and maybe that's a bearish signal for the industry overall.

[dudul]

That's a silly comment. A simple search would show you that commenters often highlight that H1B are used to "chain" temporary workers to their job. And in past years, many called for changes to allow H1B workers to change jobs more easily.

However, we are not in the same economy we were 5 years ago. The job market is very tough and the H1B program makes less sense every day.

Why would Americans have to compete with the rest of the world exactly? The purpose of a country is to serve and protect its citizens first, not become a giant open bar for the entirety of humanity.

[remarkEon]

Bizarre and entitled comment. It is not a human right to immigrate to the United States. The government here is supposed to set policies that are for the betterment of people who are from here. It’s not anti meritocracy to observe that it’s insane and stupid to pretend that every college grad in the United States needs to compete, in their own home country, with a billion people from India and China for work. The only “illiberal” thing I notice when this topic comes up here is that people seem to think the laws of supply and demand don’t apply when we talk about immigration, and thus there’s no effect on wages (wrong). Something must’ve changed, though, since that sentiment is mostly absent in this thread.

[Der_Einzige]

Correct.