H-1B Visa Lottery Is Shutting Out Top Talent. Replace It

A vitriolic debate has engulfed what’s typically an arcane corner of immigration policy: the H-1B visa for college-educated foreigners. Proponents say the visa is an essential but insufficient pipeline of global talent for hard-to-fill jobs — jobs that have long been part of the lifeblood of the American economy. Critics say visa holders are stealing jobs from American workers and driving down wages. The profanities both sides have lobbed across social media obscure their agreement that the H-1B program isn’t working as well as it should.

Created in 1990, the H-1B is an employer-sponsored visa that authorizes foreigners with “highly specialized knowledge” to work in the US for up to six years. Tech companies and IT consultancies rank among the top recipients. Every year, a government lottery awards 65,000 slots to applicants with an undergraduate degree and another 20,000 to those with advanced degrees (universities and nonprofits are exempt from these caps). The private-sector allocation is typically filled within days.