As an independent IT contractor now and previously an IT manager in a huge US company, the best H1-B reform is to fix and remove the regulations around hiring and firing legal residents.
H1-Bs are often abused. They are often used to pay less. But many companies pay more for H1-Bs to avoid all the crap and potential lawsuits/fines that go with hiring and firing US residents. Contract companies who provide H1-B workers rake in the money because the workers make less and the company they do work for pay more. Make it easy for companies to hire direct (full time or contract) and the middle-men raking in the money aren’t as needed.
It would also help if recent college grads had good work ethics and did what they were assigned rather than what they think is best. It’s not a majority who have this problem, but firing employees is a problem so you don’t want to have to fire 5-10% of your new hires (especially if they’re minorities). It’s a risk for both companies who need IT workers and would hire them direct and IT contract companies. Having 1000+ IT workers is a massive regulatory headache for HR and legal (and managers).
Back in 2002 at Intel, their was a top secret memo sent out to all 2nd level managers to find ANY way to taint direct employees files to use as justification for termination.
Every white American, man or woman working at Intel I know got tagged by this.
I only know one Indian who was and she should have been fired after her first 3 months.
It was also why Craig Barret was essentially fired from Intel.
It was HIS idea.