On an individual level, I really feel bad for anyone put in that positions. I can't imagine how stressful that would be for anyone going through that. I wouldn't want anyone to go through that.

Taking the emotion out of it and looking at a macro level though, I think the program has been abused by big tech to bring in workers who have less bargaining power and I'm all for it getting a bit of a reset. The purpose of the program is to bring in in-demand, high skill workers that employers cannot find in the US. If these employees cannot find other jobs quickly, it makes me question how in-demand their skills actually were.

I gather this question is being asked in government too: big tech has been arguing for years that the visas are needed because they need more skilled people than the domestic labour supply can supply. And now suddenly they don't, and hundreds of thousands of people are being laid off.

A policy change to allow people holding these visas who get laid off -- not fired for cause, not quit -- extended time to find new employment seems like a no brainer to me. An H1B holder can't have caused the layoffs themselves, so there's not much opening for "cheating". Sadly I think it conflicts with the true nature of the program, which you alluded to, to wit, lowering their bargaining power.

Eh, they always have the option of going back to their home countries and use their savings in a vastly stronger currency to tide by. Not to mention that most local markets are very happy to absorb ex-FAANG employees at inflated salaries.

5-8 years of FAANG wages is enough for someone to move back to, say, India, and retire.

For sure moving back home with the savings of a FAANG salary isn't the end of the world, but it still has to be terrible to uproot your entire life and move across the world in such a short period of time.

It's very possible moving back home means pulling kids out of school, leaving friends, and your partner having to quit their job. None of that is fun or easy.

I get the practical element of this stinks, but technically that’s what H1Bs are about. The original sponsor said we have to bring this person into the country since nobody else here can do this incredibly important highly in demand thing. If people aren’t tripping over themselves to snatch up someone that came into the market with those skills then the attitude of the government is maybe it’s no longer rare or in high demand and thus we can’t justify having that person here anymore. Yeah it’s rather cold and transactional, but that’s the model for H1Bs.

They should also be the first to get laid off, all other things being equal. The H1 program is supposed to fill the gap. Extend their time to find another job if you must, but citizens should remain employed first.

Yes, temporary workers who are no longer needed must leave the country. Because their positions are temporary. It’s in the name.

As a taxpayer and a voter I am not subsidizing H1B visa costs so that tech firms can have an instantly-expendable guest worker force with no rights, which they can abuse and use as a lever to reduce the bargaining power of US workers. I want these workers to have some protections and guarantees so that they are not entirely at the mercy of employers, and I want firms that abuse this privilege (hiring workers and then casually laying them off) to pay for the value this extracts from society.

FWIW, most of the people laid off by big tech are technically employees until the expiration of their severance.

For example, Meta employees laid off in November are still technically Meta employees, as far as immigration is considered, and will remain so until 2023/02, at which point they will be formally terminated, and the H1B clock starts ticking (60 days).

That translates to 4-5 months to find your next H1B-sponsoring gig. It's an added layer of existential stress, but the lived experience isn't "I need to find a new job quickly or I will be deported" for H1B employees with common big-tech severance packages. While I don't want to diminish the psychological toll, it's helpful to understand that these severance packages have cushioned the intrinsic risk of working on an H1B visa significantly.