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President-elect Donald Trump said this week that he has not changed his mind on the controversial H-1B visa program and that the US needs “smart people” to come into the country, amid a raging intra-Republican debate over the visa program.
“I didn’t change my mind. I’ve always felt that we need to have the most competent people in our country and we need competent people,” Trump said at Mar-a-Lago on Tuesday evening. “We need smart people coming into our country. We need a lot of people coming in. We’re going to have jobs like never before.“
The H-1B visa program allows US companies to hire foreign workers for skilled occupations and is used overwhelmingly by the technology industry. However, it has long been controversial to some conservatives, who say tech companies abuse it to bring in cheap, predominantly Indian labor to replace American workers.
President-elect Donald Trump looks on during Turning Point USA’s AmericaFest at the Phoenix Convention Center on December 22, 2024 in Phoenix. (Rebecca Noble/Getty Images)
The show made headlines last week when Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, who has been tapped by Trump to lead the Department of Government Efficiency, defended the importance of foreign workers to tech companies.
“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 H1B,” Musk told X.
This reopened a rift among those on the right over the program and whether it is used to attract the best talent or if it is used by companies to bring in cheaper labor, who are tied to their jobs by the visa .
Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., told Fox News on Sunday that H1-B visas are being “abused.”
“I think the abuses of the H-1B program have been evident, where there are sort of the sons and daughters of those factory workers who lost their jobs, got white collar jobs as accountants, and they’re, you know, training their replacements, the foreign workers who are driving down their wages,” he said.
President-elect Donald Trump, left, and Elon Musk pose for a photo during the UFC 309 event at Madison Square Garden on November 16, 2024 in New York City. (Jeff Bottari/Zuffa LLC)
TRUMP ADMINISTRATION MOVES TO CHANGE H-1B GUEST WORKER PROGRAM TO PRIORITIZE HIGHER WAGE APPLICANTS
Trump has previously expressed skepticism about the H-1B visa program. During his 2016 presidential campaign, he promised to address abuse of the program and pointed to accusations of companies forcing Americans to train their cheaper replacements.
“The H-1B program is neither high-skilled nor immigration — it’s about temporary foreign workers, imported from abroad, for the express purpose of replacing lower-wage American workers. I’m totally committed to eliminating rampant and widespread H-1B abuse and ending outrageous practices such as those that it happened at Disney in Florida when the Americans were forced to train their foreign replacements,” he said in 2016.
“I will forever end the use of H-1B as a cheap labor program and make it an absolute requirement to hire American workers first for every visa and immigration program. No exceptions,” he said .
He also said his companies use the H-1B program “and I shouldn’t be allowed to use it.”
Elon Musk listens as President-elect Donald Trump addresses a meeting of the House Republican Conference at the Hyatt Regency on Capitol Hill on November 13, 2024 in Washington, DC (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
His administration immediately began considering reforms to the H-1B visa program and, in 2020, proposed a sweeping rule which would prioritize the selection of higher-wage applicants for the approximately 85,000 visas allocated annually.
This rule would have required registries with the highest of the four salary levels to be able to apply for visa allocation first. Once those at the highest level have been applied for, the process would move to Level III, and so on until the slots are filled.
“Simply put, because the demand for H-1B visas has exceeded the annual supply for more than a decade, DHS prefers that the maximum subject H-1B visas target beneficiaries who earn the highest wages in relative to their codes and area (Standard Occupational Classification). (s) of the intended occupation,” the rule says.
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The rule was not put into effect because of the Biden administration, which abandoned it and has since proposed a rule of its own. However, it was received favorably by immigration hawks. Other rules introduced during the Trump administration proposed narrowing the definition of “special occupation” and making changes to the way the “prevailing wage” is set to make sure American wages don’t fall.
The incoming Trump administration has not said specifically what it will do in terms of H-1B and whether it will resurrect its first-term efforts. However, Musk proposed to “raise the minimum wage significantly and add an annual cost to maintain the H1B, making it materially more expensive to hire from abroad than at home.”
“It’s very clear to me that the program is broken and needs major reform,” he said Saturday.
At the same time, Trump said New York Post that the program is “big”.
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“I’ve always liked visas, I’ve always been in favor of visas. That’s why we have them,” Trump said.
“I have a lot of H-1B visas in my properties. I’ve believed in H-1B. I’ve used it many times. It’s a great program.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
