@deprecated_ii It's a combination. I have been in a place where we absolutely needed a specific person and had to jump through ridiculous hoops to prove that we couldn't hire some random American. And I have worked at a place where they were using H1B to hire Chinese to do Apache Struts, which even the least-educated Indian body shop can do in their sleep.

It's also absolutely true that American universities churn out tons of students that can't do anything and probably can't learn. And that in many other places, people actually care about making their kids competitive, unlike the USA.