I am glad to hear there is a shortage of experienced pilots in the GOM. The U.S. needs the workforce for their oilfields and if they arent willing to hire skilled foreign workers to fill the positions then thats their own loss. Canada has a shortage of skilled pilots also, but if you have at least about 600-1000 hours, and the Canadian commercial icense, then you can be sponsored to work there as a skilled worker, and they welcome immigration by skilled workers. The U.S. makes it harder and harder each year to work and immigrate there. Look at what they are doing with the J1 visa - now reducing the time you can spend training and working.
Flingwing 207 - unfortunately its not entirely that easy. With the current U.S. visa system, to be sponsored under H1 visa system, you have to have a college degree as a minimum of education requirements. The U.S. legal system does not consider a helicopter pilot as being a professional - as I have been told by lawyers. So you could have 10,000 hours as a helicopter pilot, and nothing more than a diploma and you are not elegible for sponsorship. And as it stands right now we all know there are not that many sponsorship visas issued every year and the majority of those go to the I.T. industry.
As always like everything else in life - they will wait and wait till the !!!! really hits the fan and then scramble to try and do something. Lets see how things work out for them then.
Good luck all!