H1B visas serve only to drive down wages for US employees. Additionally, they end up training foreign talent that are later kicked out of the country (after 3 or 6 years, depending upon whether the visa is renewed).
Not necessarily. They system may be corrupted now, but I doubt that's the only reason why we created this program. I came to Silicon Valley 14 years ago specifically because I had skill sets that were required by my company at the time and were simply not available (like speaking specific languages and understand local cultures in specific countries, in additional to specific technical skills), so for all intents and purposes, it was completely legit. I was also very naive at the time and I openly discussed salaries with my co-workers (something pretty common where I come from) so I realized I was NOT being paid less than them. In some cases I was being paid more.
I didn't consider I was being "trained" either. In fact, I was doing most of the training, and when the time came to look at other opportunities outside the company, almost every potential employer that contacted me already knew they'd have to renew my H1-B in order to get me, and that wasn't considered an issue, just an annoyance.
A while after I met my wife and I became a citizen through marriage, but at least my experience was very different from what other people is discussing in this thread.
8 Catfish = 1 Octo-puss