The Americans have a dilemma as far as the H1B is concerned, or more broadly towards immigrants.

Allow more H1B, and more immigrants move in to take your jobs. Disallow them and the jobs move offshore.

So which one is it going to be?

I am sure it is going to be the latter. The reason is that behind all this rigmarole of policies, laws and grand posturing is a simple driving force– people don’t like immigrants.

To say that America is a country of immigrants is false. America is a country of Americans. It was a country of immigrants, just like all other countries, but those days are past.

It is natural human behaviour. When you have resources, you are privileged, would you readily accept new members into the club? Would the Indians like skilled Nepalis and Bangladeshis trooping in their country to fill vacant job slots? The jobs may move to other locations, true, but as long as they are not intruding on our comfort zones with their physical presence, will we really care?

The people who will care are the people running the companies that need manpower. They don’t care about nationality, only their business. H1 visas, green cards help, since many of them may not be currently in the offshoring mode.

But governments are more driven by people’s mood. And that does not favour easy immigration.

The very high importance that economic forces command in the American economy has seen many alien people, many alien corporations succeed in the country. But as the ‘country of immigrants’ concept slowly becomes obsolete, the upsurge of feelings against immigrants will only gather steam, and that will make immigration progressively tougher.