President-elect Donald Trump has declared that he is a “believer in H-1B” visas, quashing the opposition to the programme for qualified professionals to work in the US that pitted the right-wing fringe against his advisers Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy.
“It’s a great program,” he told the New York Post in a phone interview on Saturday.
He said, “I’ve always liked the visas, I have always been in favour of the visas. That’s why we have them.”
“I have many H-1B visas on my properties. I’ve been a believer in H-1B. I have used it many times,” he told the newspaper that is a part of the Rupert Murdoch-controlled News Corp. Trump has advocated for merit-based immigration reform, such as implementing a points system similar to Canada’s or Australia’s, which prioritises academic and employable qualifications. He has stated that he wants international students graduating from US universities to receive green cards along with their diplomas.
He echoed it during his campaign this year: “What I want to do, and what I will do, is – when you graduate from college, I believe you should automatically receive a green card as part of your diploma, allowing you to stay in this country.”
Differences over H1-B visas and high-skilled immigration erupted among Trump supporters after he hired Sriram Krishnan, an Indian immigrant, as his artificial intelligence adviser. Laura Loomer, a far-right Trump fan among his devoted base known as the MAGA (an acronym for Trump’s rallying cry of “Make America Great Again”), fired one of the first salvos.
She wrote on Musk’s X, “Deeply disturbing to see the appointment of Sriram Krishnan” and accused him of seeking to eliminate all constraints on the number of green cards that grant permanent resident immigration status.
David Sacks, whom Trump has named the Crypto and AI Czar and would be Krishnan’s boss, stated on X that he had only suggested removing the limits on green cards that can be given to individual countries while keeping the overall limits so that unused green cards could be distributed to those with large waiting lists.
As personal insults and false charges poured against Krishnan, Sacks returned to his defence, writing on X that “the lies just shifted, including to some nasty attacks” against him.
Musk took a more personal approach, writing on X, “The reason I’m in America along with so many critical people who built SpaceX, Tesla, and hundreds of other companies that made America strong is because of H-1B.” He cautioned that if the United States does not recruit the world’s greatest talent, it will “LOSE”.
“There is an ongoing lack of top engineering expertise. “It is the primary limiting factor in Silicon Valley,” he wrote on X.
“If you force the world’s best talent to play for the other side, America will LOSE,” he wrote, challenging critics to choose whether they wanted the US to win or lose.
Ramaswamy defended the programs that send skilled immigrants to the United States, claiming that US firms looked elsewhere for brilliance due to a culture of mediocrity among Americans.
“Our American culture has venerated mediocrity over excellence for way too long (at least since the 90s and likely longer),” he wrote in a blog post.
“The reason top IT businesses frequently choose foreign-born and first-generation engineers over “native” Americans is not due to an underlying American IQ deficit (a lazy and incorrect explanation). “Culture is a critical component,” he remarked.
He went on to mention factors such as the accolades given to sports and entertainment celebrities in comparison to science and technology successes, as well as the derision directed towards academic pupils. As attacks on H1-B visa holders and merit-based green card recipients escalated, Musk threatened a critic in an obscenity-laced post: “Take a big step back and **** YOURSELF in the face.” I will go to war on this topic in ways you cannot imagine.”
Indians are the largest recipients of H-1B visas, accounting for 72.3% of them last year. While the MAGA-right’s opposition to Indians coming in on H-1B visas and as immigrants on professional visas has made headlines, the Left in the Democratic Party has always opposed them, accusing them of depressing wages for US-born citizens and taking their jobs.
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