Let me tell you my story. Back in the early 1990s I was looking to go back to graduate school in Engineering. While my undergraduate work was not stellar, I had been working in industry for 7 years getting As in MBA and correspondence Masters Engineering courses (the engineering courses were from Iowa State). I had also been paying taxes to the state of Iowa for seven years. I also had pretty good GRE scores (general and Engineering)
I tried to get an engineering teaching or research assistantship at either Iowa State or Iowa, and I was unable to obtain one. When I finally went to Iowa in 1992 (after being laid off by my employer), I found almost every M.S. student had an assistantship except me. As you noted probably 50% or more of the M.S. students were foreign nationals. I did very well in my engineering classes at Iowa, and I eventually got my M.S. without receiving a dime from the university. The fact that I did well in my classes demonstrates that I had the aptitude for M.S. work in engineering. I do fairly advanced work at my current employer, and I publish some.
My question is why wouldn't a U.S. citizen - especially one from the same state be given a little more consideration for assistantship money? Compared to a 4.0 from some India university, I probably did not look like as strong a candidate, but seven years of work experience should count for something.
My daughter is leaning towards engineering as a profession, and I struggle to advice her on whether it makes sense to go into it. I think it does, but look at the number of engineering degrees being awarded worldwide. I see a glut in the field. I do think that more attention should be paid to attracting U.S. citizens to M.S. and PhD programs. I can see your argument about training foreign workers and then forcing them out of the country, but why should not U.S. students get those jobs instead? One thing that could immediately happpen is make the engineering departments cover the full out of state tuition for their foreign assistants. At least when I was at Iowa, out of state and foreign assistants were treated as in state for tuition purposes. This allows the engineering departments' money to go further.
As far as H1B Visas, I would simplify it. No more posting for U.S. citizens because it is a joke anyway. If you or your employer pays $40K/yr, you get to stay in this country and work. If US engineers cannot compete on those terms, then we are in the wrong business anyway. We can argue about the number.
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