Addressing the Problem of Highly Skilled Immigrants

In the recent discussions about immigration issues I have seen on Gather and in the larger media, I have seen/heard very little about the problems unique to highly skilled immigrants, most with higher degrees in science and engineering.  The quota for such immigrants now stands at 54,000 per year, and many business organizations, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, say the limit should be at least doubled.   

I’d like to offer a couple of thoughts on each side of the issue:

1)       On the side supporting an increase, I would like to point out that the US is falling quickly behind in the areas of science & engineering education. It is appalling to me that we continue our downward slope in this area, in part due to a large anti-science movement in the US based on fundamentalist views of religion. My daughter is going for her PhD in engineering and most of her fellow grad students are from the Near and Far East and Eastern Europe (as were her fellow under-grads), and are not American citizens. There are very few American students going into these fields. Where is our country going to be without this talent in the coming years? We must accept as many talented scientists and engineers from other countries as we can to remain competitive.

2)  On the other hand, companies, like Microsoft, are undercutting Americans in new positions and paying non-citizens less for the same jobs. It is not just out-sourcing - this is happening within companies on American soil just so that they can lower their expenses and increase profits. This is not fair to the American worker, nor is it fair to the foreign worker who is working the same job for less pay and benefits.

In addition to this, there is the fallacy of off-shore savings. I worked for a number of years in IT areas for large companies, managing projects. When the off-shore idea came along, many corp execs jumped on the band wagon hook, line and sinker, hungrily eyeing the savings that were promised. In my experience, every time off-shore IT people worked on projects, the project became over-time and over-budget due to these workers. For the most part this was due to the facts that:
1) the off-shore staff did not understand American business needs (some did not speak English very well);
2) the off-shore staff did not understand American business culture (they had a very hard time taking orders from and reporting to female managers); and,
3) the off-shore staff had a significant turnover, as most larger projects extend over at least a year's time and these folks would leave in the middle to go home to their families, sometimes never to return.

These are just a few of the issues.  I could go on and on about the problems. You may say, but if this is the case, then why do corporations continue to use off-shore companies and say that it's such a great thing for American business? Part of the problem is that executives' egos do not allow them to admit that they made a HUGE mistake taking their corporations down these paths. We are stuck with this problem for many, many years to come. 

What are your thoughts on this particular part of the immigration issue?  Do you have personal experience with having lost a job due to this issue, or have a success story related to it?