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It's clear you are not considering the long-term effects of labor policy. If we want a stronger domestic workforce, the answer is to incentivize Americans to develop the skills we need and to train them when they do not already have those skills. Mass importing foreign labor is not a substitute for building and investing in the domestic workforce.
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Btw, this is analogous to the argument for positive discrimination:

Preferentially treat one group of people (non-white/women/Americans) even if in the short term the revealed preference of businesses is to hire a different group of people (white/men/immigrants), such that, in the long term, the first group of people can develop the necessary skills to compete with the second group.

Short term pain for long term gain.

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The arguments can be the same but have entirely different hidden variables that make it fine to use the argument in one context and not the other.

Also, this ignores that the government works for citizens, no matter their race. Promoting racial equality among citizens is a function that the government might undertake. Pursuing policies that favor citizens over non-citizens falls in line with that same reasoning.

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No it's really not the same because we have laws against racial discrimination, but it is the entire purpose of the state to represent the interests of its citizens above all others.
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Yes, there are thousands of qualified engineers looking for work.
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Millions depending on how you cut it.
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It’s a big industry. There are many roles at many different levels of expertise and experience.

Many can’t find locals.

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> Many can’t find locals.

*for the price they want to pay.

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You can’t get them to apply. They are already very well paid. It’s a finite pool that is not large enough. Bidding up pay won’t change that. Instead you just hire overseas.
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Paying more will inherently mean that people cross-train to reap the financial rewards.
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They would be looking for work with you if you were offering them better pay and conditions than where they're currently working.
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Money does not fix the supply problem the parent comment pointed out (at least for fields that need multi year training).

Let’s say that tomorrow we need 1M nuclear physicists. How can money help? You still need to wait for the talent pipeline to divert.

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Fortunately such ridiculous hypotheticals have no correspondence to reality. Most every job can be easily trained or cross trained. Mathematicians make good physicists. Nor is there some foreign pipeline of a million physicists. Such ridiculous argument exist only to perpetuate the lie of a skills shortage and deny the wage shortage.
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They may make good physicists, but not great physicists. Similar to saying I know how to drive a car, now let me win the inde 500. Things take to for specialization, even with the advent of guessing and checking machines (llms).
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A shocking number of innovations in x field are because y person brought an idea that maps from z field. Cross functional teams are important and mathematicians can and absolutely do make top level contributions to physics.

One of the math problems recently publicized as having being solved by was actually just discovering that a German mathematician had published a solution in the 1950s.

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With training (remember that?) and practice, one could vastly improve. It’s called a growth mindset.
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Why are they needed in the USA, but not needed in their home country?
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I’m very pro immigration, but “Americans are lazy and stupid , thus unfit for hiring” isn’t a winning argument.

Tons of Americans are out of work. I’ve personally seen my wages drop by at least 20$ an hour as well as the work being less stable.

Gasp, you might need to train someone a bit or have employees that will say no if you ask them to work on Christmas.

If I ran the H1B program it would be an unrestricted work permit with an automatic pathway to a GC after 5 years. Don’t get *convicted* of a felony and here you go.

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Hiring is such a shit show, there's no reason to assume the people doing the hiring know what they're doing. Like HR has to insert them selves into the process
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