It is interesting, because a couple of years ago, I was a hiring manager working through the H-1B process for one of my employees. I had to provide a wealth of documentation on what the needed skill set was, as well as documentation on the job advertisements we had made and interviews conducted.

Maybe on the government side it was all ignored, but the firm we worked with certainly led us through the process with detail and seriousness.

Its not the tech companies lobbying. Its the companies like verizon and disney. Tech companies are feeling the pain of h1-b being oversubscribed. If you need a very specific skill that has a very small talent pool, you're competing against these companies who are doing it just to get cheaper labor. When we look at machine learning with advanced degrees, that pool is probably at 100% employment in the US. Thats what h1b is designed to address. Not filling out an oracle DBA position for under market rates.

Can a lawsuit be brought against the government if it is truly shirking its responsibilities when presented with evidence of broken laws?

I smell a money-making opportunity for an enterprising attorney!

There's a common law principle called Sovereign Immunity that generally limits the ability of people to sue their government without the government's consent. Of course, in a lot of places governments have granted consent in some broad ways (the US for torts against employees or where the government had a contract with a private entity, apparently[1]). But IANAL.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_immunity#United_Stat...

Are you talking about a Citizen Suit [1]?

Naïvely, it sounds like a great candidate for a class action. Any real lawyers want to weigh in?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizen_suit