https://www.nbc26.com/decodedc/whats-the-real-reason-tech-companies-want-to-hire-foreign-workers

(Circa 2017)

"He adds that in reality there’s a labor boom in the U.S. in the high-skilled arena, so much so that Ph.D. science students are having trouble finding work — not the other way around. According to a 2016 study by the National Science Foundation, doctoral students in science and engineering fields who reported definite work commitments or a postdoc position dropped to the lowest in 15 years."

"Testifying in March 2016 on the impact of high-skilled immigration on U.S. workers, Ron Hira, a research associate at the Economic Policy Institute, a nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank, told a U.S. Senate subcommittee that H-1B labor was much cheaper than American labor. Referring to a study conducted by EPI, Hira said the wages of H-1B workers were at least $40,000 lower per worker — about a 40 to 50 percent discount."

One industry leader kind of threatened that if they can't hire foreign workers here, they may have to look to outsourcing (paraphrase) the jobs.

https://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-20150802-column.html

"The mismatch between Qualcomm’s plea to import more high-tech workers and its efforts to downsize its existing payroll hints at the phoniness of the high-tech sector’s persistent claim of a “shortage” of U.S. graduates in the “STEM” disciplines — science, technology, engineering and mathematics."

"The industry’s push for more visas glosses over other issues. As we’ve reported, the majority of H-1B visas go not to marquee high-tech companies such as Google and Microsoft, but to outsourcing firms including the India-based giants Infosys and Tata. They’re not recruiting elite STEM graduates with unique skills, but contract workers to replace American technical employees — who often are required to train their foreign-born replacement as a condition of receiving their severance. This is the scandalous method of cost-cutting used by companies such as Southern California Edison, which outsourced the jobs of some 500 information technology employees, as we reported in February."

"It’s unlikely that such hard numbers will silence the drumbeat for more high-tech immigration, Teitelbaum says,as long as big tech companies have Congress’ attention.“The lobbying opposition is weak,” he says.“There’s no interest group that’s as well organized and financed to say that this is an emperor with no clothes on.”