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"we really need the H1-B because there's no native who can do the job equally well"


Well from an economic perspective that statement is not even wrong (lot's of laws have this problem). Consider the following toy model:

Let's say there are two companies each of which needs a programmer with skill X, and there is only one native programer with skill X. So one of the companies asks for a H1-B candidate. Is that statement true? Well, technically it could out bid the other company for the native programer.






One company hires the programmer and the other company then gets to point to the existing market and note that there aren't any candidates for the position. The company can then hire a H1-B. If you allow H1-Bs to freely change jobs, the company can't hire the H1-B at a very low salary because the other company can fire the native and hire the H1-B at a salary that is higher than that but lower than the native's current salary.

Of course, firing employees to hire new employees at a lower salary has problems, but this is a toy problem. In a real situation the other company would gradually have job openings open and be filled all the time as employees enter and leave the workforce. If the H1-B can freely switch jobs, he would find it useful to compete with the people entering the workforce for one of those positions.
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Jiro
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