I think the systems employed in the middle east where passports are confiscated and more overt coercion is involved are closer to slavery.

The conditions you describe certainly exist but are the nature of employment based immigration everywhere. It’s hard to imagine any country forgoing that initial period of leverage in their corporation’s favor. What’s uniquely exploitative in the US is keeping people in visa limbo for a period of 10 to 15 years because each nation has a cap of 7% of total green cards regardless of size or level of immigration. That mean the number of greencards available to a nation of 1 billion is the same as the number available to a nation of 20 million.

In the end it’s not the population of an immigrants origin country that matters, it’s how many are coming to the US. If there are a larger number of immigrants admitted from one country via H1b then there should be a greater number of green cards alotted. This way that exploitative relationship doesn’t stretch for 10 to 15 years which allows employers to engage in questionable labor practices.

Immigrants have always had to come in, put their heads down, and work. That’s the nature of moving to a new country. To a degree, anyone (even locals) that joins a new employer has a probationary period and has to avoid making waves initially, at least in the many parts of the country with at will employment. Those circumstances are not likely to change.

Instead we should be focussed on immigrants getting at minimum fair (median) pay and having a clear pathway to permanent residency to curtail an employer’s ability leverage visa status.

If there is another “nation of immigrants” that does it better I’d be interested to hear about it. As far as I know Canada’s LMIA system faces similar issues.