I’m curious what visa the “extremely talented people from the subcontinent” were on. If they have a green card or are naturalized citizens, there are very few paths to those statuses that doesn’t involve an H1B.

I'm against these top sweatshops, but is the answer to that is ban the entire subcontinent?

Also, I don't know how many h1bs have you worked with. I have worked with many (hundreds), and it's the same spectrum of talent you'd find anywhere. This is probably not the intent of h1b, but banning a set of countries is not the solution. Changing the criteria is.

The fact that it’s the same spectrum of talent (in your experience) is a glaring indicator that the system has been systematically abused by Indian WITCH to the point it’s no longer fit for purpose. Unfortunately systems constructed in high trust societies (1950s USA) must adapt with the arrival of low trust societies. Much like the European refugee conventions established in the echoes of WW2 and now gleefully exploited by these same low trust societies.

That's what I said. This is not the intent of H1b and exploiters must be punished. Classifying countries into low trust/high trust without understanding the full context of history and exploitation (by the so called high trust societies) and saying they are "gleefully" exploited, is disingenuous. Also see https://www.uscis.gov/tools/reports-and-studies/h-1b-employe... , and it's not just WITCH. In fact American companies have the biggest slice

Stop using British colonialism as an excuse for shitty behaviour, no one is buying that lazy argument anymore.

So many places were under the yolk of the same historical forces and managed to pull themselves together - India is rather unique in its inability to do so.