I don't think this is discrimination against Americans: it's just discrimination against people who price themselves higher. H1-B workers are glad to be in the US and are willing to accept substantially less cash compensation as a result. Americans already have US citizenship and want to be paid in money. Companies don't like spending money but the government allows them to spend "citizenship points" on employees instead, so they do and here we are. (And, you can threaten employees you don't like with deportation, which is much scarier and perhaps more motivating than "you're laid off and will have to collect unemployement while waiting for your new job to start. remember to get out of bed for a few hours a day so you don't get bedsores!" It certainly prevents people from asking for raises, equity, etc.)
Ultimately, you get what you pay for. The problem is that the market hasn't figured this out yet, since good programmers are so few and far between that most programming-related projects fail anyway. If you're going to fail, you might as well fail with cheap labor that won't talk back instead of with expensive labor mixed with cheap labor, right?
Ultimately, you get what you pay for. The problem is that the market hasn't figured this out yet, since good programmers are so few and far between that most programming-related projects fail anyway. If you're going to fail, you might as well fail with cheap labor that won't talk back instead of with expensive labor mixed with cheap labor, right?