Programmers Guild file H1-B visa complaints

A major point of argument against foreign workers on H1 visas is that they're not skilled or competent enough but just cheap labor that companies often abuse. Programmer's Guild, another IT workers lobby group has filed various complaints to the U.S. Department of Justice that certain U.S. companies use words like "We require candidates for H1B from India" and "We sponsor GC [green card] and we do prefer H1B holders". They remind us that these are against the U.S. Immigration laws and that these companies should try and hire Americans before they hire a foreigner. They argue that these companies only want to hire foreigners as cheap labor and essentially use these examples to black label the visa program itself.

According to the USCIS definitions, H1-B speciality occupations include such diverse fields as architecture, mathematics, social sciences, accounting, arts, law, education. Candidates should have atleast a bachelor's degree or equivalent. If indeed companies wanted to bring in cheap labor, shouldn't we see more foreign architects, lawyers, accountants, professors, doctors as they should be as easily available in any other country as programmers are? Then why are there mostly only IT workers being brought in on H1-B and significantly lesser numbers in other occupations? Everyone knows how highly paid some of these other occupations are and shouldn't companies just hire them cheaper abroad if that was their only goal?

While I agree that those who abuse the program should be punished, the few abuses itself should be no reason to stop or cut back the program. Let the markets decide what is the required number and let the labor groups and the Government agencies ensure that wage abuses are monitored and prevented. The complaints that the guild filed mention ads on sites like DICE and MONSTER, but they also mention dozens of ads on SULEKHA.com, which is a community web portal for expatriate Indians. Are they suggesting that companies should not advertise vacant job positions to foreign nationals? The guild is just using technical reasons to promote its own agenda. One look at their home page is enough to understand whether they're concerned more about improving the quality of the visa program or whether they are against the visa program itself and are finding reasons to stop it.

The truth is, there is a lack of "QUALITY" people and that's it. IT is only about 1.5% of the total U.S. work force and high-tech jobs are ever increasing. The shortage of "QUALITY" people drives up the wages of the few people who are employed in IT. These people who are then fundamentally opposed to bringing foreign workers will go to great lengths to find flaws in the system. If these so called "abuses" in the H1-B system are fixed, then they will find other ways to oppose it, that's just their job!