New York: United States President-elect Donald Trump weighed in a divisive immigration debate as he expressed support for the H1-B visa program for ‘highly skilled workers.’ The Visa issue has sparked fierce conflict between Trump’s traditional base and tech leaders like Elon Musk
“I’ve always liked the (H1-B) visas, I have always been in favour of the visas, that’s why we have them” at Trump-owned facilities, Trump told the New York Post. This was his first public comments over the Visa issue that triggered the debate last week.
Earlier Musk had even vowed to ‘go to war’ over the issue as he entered into a fiery debate with the traditional anti-immigration Trump supporters. Trump’s repeated calls for strict restrictions on immigration were central to his win in the November Presidential polls. In his campaigns, he had vowed to deport all undocumented immigrants and put limitations on legal immigration.
But some tech leaders like Tesla’s Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy said the US produces too few highly skilled graduates and that’s why they supported the H1-B program. Musk had himself migrated from South Africa to the US on an H1-B. Taking to X, Musk wrote that luring elite engineering talent from abroad was ‘essential for America to keep winning.’
Echoing similar views, Ramaswamy, the son of immigrants from India, had also posted that who deplored an ‘American culture’ venerate mediocrity. He claimed the United States risks having “our asses handed to us by China.”
These posts angered several prominent conservatives who were supporting Trump. “Looking forward to the inevitable divorce between President Trump and Big Tech,” said Laura Loomer, a far-right MAGA figure, who often flew with Trump on his campaign plane.
“We have to protect President Trump from the technocrats,” she added.
