How about a market mechanism that would determine once and for all not only who is right, but that would determine what the market-clearing price for skilled immigrant labor actually is, informing future immigration policy formation?
Right now, #H1B visas are issued on a first come, first served basis, for a flat fee, and the number is arbitrarily capped. Such a system tells us nothing about how much an H1B visa (and thus a skilled immigrant worker) is actually worth to an employer. And because the number is capped and the fee low, the system actually encourages a lottery or jackpot approach—in other words, employers would apply for as many visas as possible, hoping to get enough. This is an irrational system.
It would make much more sense to allocate H1B visas via an auction process. If H1B visas were auctioned to employers each year in a sealed bid process, with the bids allocated from highest to lowest until the available permits were exhausted, supply and demand would establish the market-clearing price for the right to hire a skilled immigrant worker. Because of the likely higher fees resulting from the auction mechanism, employers would have no incentive to hire an immigrant worker if an equivalent #AmericanWorker were available, which would lead to more accurately determining areas where shortages of American workers actually exist.