The problem with H1-B is that it's not even a speed bump for those it is supposedly trying to stop, while it's a total road block for everyone else.
If all you care about is rotating in another 19000 warm, cheap bodies every year then you have no worries: just submit 40000 applications every year and roll with whatever comes out of the lottery.
If, on the other hand, you are like the author and want to hire one particular person with a specific skill set, you have a roughly 50% chance of being able to do that in between 6 and 18 months from any given point in time. (Note that there's no way to do it in less than 6 months.)
The system works well only for the very companies that are exploiting it. I know that the US missed out on 2.5 years of tax revenue that it could have had from me had I not moved to another country that made getting a work visa trivial because of this issue. That worked out great for me, but I still struggle to see how it made America better off.
If all you care about is rotating in another 19000 warm, cheap bodies every year then you have no worries: just submit 40000 applications every year and roll with whatever comes out of the lottery.
If, on the other hand, you are like the author and want to hire one particular person with a specific skill set, you have a roughly 50% chance of being able to do that in between 6 and 18 months from any given point in time. (Note that there's no way to do it in less than 6 months.)
The system works well only for the very companies that are exploiting it. I know that the US missed out on 2.5 years of tax revenue that it could have had from me had I not moved to another country that made getting a work visa trivial because of this issue. That worked out great for me, but I still struggle to see how it made America better off.