President-elect Donald Trump told the New York Post that he supports the program, citing the simmering feud among MAGA allies over H-1B worker visas, the newspaper reported.
“I’ve always liked Visa,” Trump told the New York Post. The H-1B visa program allows employers to temporarily hire non-U.S. nationals for highly skilled jobs.
“I have a lot of H-1B visas on my property. I’ve always believed in H-1B. I’ve used it many times. It’s a great program,” he said, according to the media report. .
A spokesperson for President Trump’s transition team did not respond to a request for comment about which Trump facilities employ H-1B workers.
During his first term, the Trump administration introduced rules that reduced the number of H-1B visas issued each year. However, this rule was ultimately struck down in court.
In recent days, the MAGA world has been embroiled in a debate over the program, with one faction defending the visa and another arguing that the program allows foreigners to take American jobs. .
Trump’s allies, including Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, argued in online posts that the visa program would benefit the country.
“The United States has far too few highly talented and highly motivated engineers,” Musk said in a post this week.
Musk, a South African-born naturalized American, said the reason he and the others who created SpaceX and Tesla are in the United States is because of the H-1B program.
“Take a big step back and look at yourself squarely,” he said in the post. “I’m going to go fight this issue that you’ll never understand.”
“Those vile idiots must be removed from the Republican Party,” Musk said in a post on X, later referring to “hateful, unrepentant racists within the Republican Party.” revealed that.
Musk’s post was in response to a post by Scott Adams, creator of the Dilbert comic strip, who said, “MAGA is learning from Democrats how to lose elections while being confident in yourself.” “There is,” he said.
Separately, Ramaswamy, who heads the Trump administration’s Office of Nongovernmental Government Efficiency in collaboration with Musk, said in a post on insisted.
Ramaswamy also wrote in a Friday post on It should be replaced with a non-indentured servitude program.” 1 company) and de-bureaucratized. ”
Republicans who criticized H-1B visas included far-right activists Laura Loomer and Steve Bannon. Former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley echoed similar sentiments, calling it “lazy” for “the tech industry to automatically send in foreign workers to meet their needs.”
“Invest in America’s workforce,” she said in a post to X on Friday. “We must invest in Americans first before we look elsewhere.”
Musk is being censored by critics after more than a dozen conservatives, including Loomer, claimed that his Blue Badge certification for X was revoked after they criticized his views on immigration. He also faced criticism.
Contributed by Catherine Doyle, David Ingram, and Elise Perlmutter-Gumbiner.
