I think your reply is the perfect example of the malaise of the general public discourse on most topics these days which seems to be far less informed by scientifically established laws and principles rather than by personal anecdotes.

Let me preface my writing by saying that I am neither a US citizen nor a tech worker currently employed or aiming for employment with a US based firm.

I am a first generation immigrant in a continental European country who faced no barriers in charting my career in tech. I deeply believe in and have experienced meritocracy.

So let's go at it one by one.

> Every foreign employee getting that tech job is a US citizen from the Midwest not getting it.

That is simply not true as the distribution for demand and supply of tech talent within an economy is hardly ever matching perfectly temporally. Either there is more demand than supply or more supply than demand. Also upskilling everyone in the Midwest does not work just that quickly.

That is how the world works.

Your argument is not rooted at all in basic macroeconomics, rather, it seems to me, in wishful thinking.

No country other than the USA is better at playing that macroeconomics game through talent oriented immigration laws.

Has been for the past 200 years, will be for the next 200 years.

I'd bet on that.

> Fuck this dishonest talking point, I know people coding since high school working at Toyota plants while people from overseas with entry level skill sets have employers move them to the west coast and land jobs (for whatever reason.)

Said people you know must either not have the chops you claim they have, not know their market value or not have the required mobility for the purpose of securing said jobs (i.e. moving out of the Midwest to the economic hotspots of the US).

Giving you the benefit of the doubt that indeed subservient immigration is an economic niche of it's own, there is no chance that practice alone saturates the demand for tech talent.

How many SWE positions in every other HN thread alone require citizenship, timezone presence or offer no assistance with immigration?

> It’s favoritism, it’s cronyism, it’s a nation putting its own struggling people last and it most certainly is zero sum.

While a populist, assertive statement, I think it is lack of widespread education & upskilling initiatives (which literally everyone else outside of the tech sector has incentives for: what would Toyota, Walmart, literally everyone else stand to gain from more educated citizens leaving the Midwest for higher paying jobs?), greed and fiscal pressure (I've promised my VCs 200% growth YoY, so I need SWEs stat from literally anywhere NOW, can't wait for these folks from the Midwest to upskill within 2 years) and generational change (those HS friends chopping away at Toyota might not have applied in their early years when remote work was as prevalent as it is today. It will be a totally different game for a Midwest child growing up in a tech inspired household today).

Lack in speed of upskilling/ education, fiscal economic pressure and glacial pace of generational change is literally what every other nation is facing.

Time is always the scarcest and most critical factor.
And that's why it's not zero sum.

In the long run, no economy is bound to employ more people in tech both domestic and foreign than the USA and that is a massive, massive achievement - and based in simple macroeconomic rules, not some emotional anecdotes.