H1B sponsors don’t hold your passport.

H1B visas have a similar effect of promoting longer employments and lower wages compared to the local workforce with regular liberty.

"similar effect"s are not relevant here. H1B are free to go back to their home country at will.

That assumes a lot of things that aren't true of the H1B holders I've met through work.

Do you mean financially they aren't able to? To me that's a different situation than literally not allowed to leave by your employer, because they won't return your passport.

I am on H1B and know tons and tons of people who are on it. you can absolutely pack your bags and leave the very same day if you wish.

I’ve always wondered, what does “holding a passport” entail? Can’t you just go to your embassy and make a new passport as if you’ve lost the old one? How can some other guy holding your documents make you a slave unable to leave if you want?

Another poster in this thread suggested¹ that there must be some degree of collusion with the migrant worker’s home state(s) for this practice to be widespread.

It’s possible that if they try to obtain a new password from their embassy or consul that they’re told they should retrieve their original one from their “employer”. They may have to prove it was lost or stolen by filling out an official police form – which would likely be a criminal offence if done so knowing that the passport was not lost. This is all conjecture: I’m imagining how there could be rules that appear to be fair on the surface but are actually enforced in such a way as to unfairly restrict the human rights/freedom of the worker.

¹ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31834976