Trump "cracking down" on H-1B visa program

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The outsourcing firms [utilizing 40% of the H1-B program] are controversial because they are exempt from the federal requirement that they not displace American workers if they pay H-1B visa holders at least $60,000 a year. That threshold still falls below the market rate for American tech workers.

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The H-1B visas last for three years and can be renewed once. But workers applying for green cards can renew their visas indefinitely. There is currently a decadelong backlog of Indian green card applicants. Given the tremendous delay, companies have an incentive to hire workers from India, who critics say end up in a system of de facto "indentured servitude."

... Kapoor [president of Immigration Voice, a nonprofit advocating on behalf of high-skilled foreign workers concerned about the green card backlogs] calls the H-1B visa program a federally sanctioned "long-term employee retention insurance program" because green card applicants cannot change jobs while their applications are pending or they have to restart their applications.

"If an employee is not going anywhere, the employer will not give salary increases," he said. As a result, "American workers are discriminated against in the job market and immigrant workers are exploited."