Now wait a minute, while the employment rate was rising I was renting an appartment looking for a home to buy. It was a pleasant experiance, I was surrounded by Eastern Indian families here on work visas mostly IT people. Despite the great company and food shared every day it got me thinking.
In the USA the media has the whole issue of undoccumented workers and lost jobs often in the headlines while high paying jobs were given out like candy to immigrants on visas who performed the same task's that were putting many educated people out of work.
It would not surprise me for a US carrier to get visas for many pilots especially during seasonal periods. They can pay you the same but it costs them less when they would like to layoff.