And yet, they never applied the simple option of ranking the visa applications by salary, and approving in order of demand for the talent.
That would be a market based solution that allows everyone to get the talent they need without driving down American wages.
But the point isn't about helping Americans, it's about being peedormatively against letting in brown people.
They are doing that now too, however the problem is that h1b is used for roles outside of tech, believe it or not, and if you measure everything by Bay Area tech salaries a bunch of necessary but lower paying jobs will go unfilled
If it's truly necessary, the fact that it's unfilled would be directly related to it being low paid.
And if the employer isn't willing to pay the cost of labor to fill the position, it directly raises the question of whether its "necessary".
They can pay more, or hire American.