There is lot of talk floating around about the H-1B visas, this really started with Bill Gates comments on the topic, Now there is a lot of talk about the topic and the discussion now has reached a point weather it is "patriotic or tresonous". Below are a few posts on the topic.

Feds to release 20,000 H-1B visas next week
Federal officials will open the doors to an additional 20,000 foreign workers under the H-1B visa program beginning May 12, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services department said today

Congress approved the additional 20,000 visas last year after U.S. technology firms and academic groups complained that the reduced 65,000-worker cap was too low to meet demand. Opponents of the controversial visa cap, which had previously been set at 195,000, argue that the influx of skilled foreign workers is costing U.S. citizens and permanent residents jobs.
The 65,000 H-1B visas approved by Congress for the fiscal year that began last Oct. 1 were taken in a day.

Source: ComputerWorld

H-1B: Patriotic or treasonous?
The H-1B visa is either a betrayal of American IT workers or a necessity of the country's high-tech future, and in a fiery debate both sides are flaming about what should be done.

For the high-tech community, what bill gates said about hiring foreign nationals under the H-1B visa program is a white-hot issue. "The whole idea behind the H-1B thing is, 'Don't let too many smart people come into the country,' " Gates said during a panel discussion at the Library of Congress two weeks ago, opining that if he had his way he would eliminate the quota for H-1B visas, currently set at 65,000. The demand for a more open H-1B policy -- and the debate over whether the United States has enough "smart people" of its own -- goes to the heart of the conflict raging between high-tech employees and employers.

Just to set the record straight, the government does not say anything about intelligence in its definition of the H-1B visa. According to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the new name for the Immigration and Naturalization Service, H-1B is a "nonimmigrant classification used by an alien who will be employed temporarily in a specialty occupation or as a fashion model of distinguished merit and ability."

Norman Matloff, professor of computer science at the University of California, Davis, disagrees with Gates. Matloff said the issue comes down to hiring "cheap labor."

Although companies are required by law to hire foreign nationals on a pay scale equivalent to the pay scale of American workers, they are also permitted to hire by generic category rather than recognizing a particular skill set.

Source : Infoworld