nothing really changes for the people working for actual American companies who pay market wages.. I know H1bs here in Southern California making equal to the market rate.
It’s the body shopping Indian companies that are abusing the whole system – Infosys, Wipro, TCS etc. They are the ones paying 50% of the market wage using various loopholes. In addition, they apply for 4 times the number of visas needed to saturate the H1b lottery. This prevents other American companies that have legitimate needs without access to the visas.
Infosys, TCS, Wipro etc. need to be banned from the program permanently. If they want to do Software Development let them do it in India.
The greater problem is the L1 visa which is abused even more. L1 was created to move employees temporarily between branch offices of American companies and not to bring thousands of people en masse to work onsite for a 3rd party client. This practice must be banned immediately.
An L1 worker must be prohibited to work at a address that is different from the company’s address in the US. Additionally they should be required to leave after a maximum of 90 days unless serious justification is given why they need to stay.
Further, I think L1 and H1b visas should not at all be given to ANY company that has laid off American workers in the same category in the past 3 years.