US President-elect Donald Trump delivers a speech at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, US, December 16, 2024.
Brian Snyder | Reuters
President-elect Donald Trump addressed the simmering dispute among MAGA allies over H-1B worker visas, telling the New York Post that he supports the program, according to the outlet.
Trump told the New York Post that he “always loved visas.” The H-1B visa program allows employers to temporarily hire non-U.S. citizens in highly skilled jobs.
“I have several H-1B visas on my property. I've been a believer in H-1B visas. I've used them several times. It's a great program,” he said, according to the outlet's report.
A spokesman for Trump's transition team did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
During his first term, the Trump administration implemented rules that would have reduced the number of H-1B visas issued each year. However, the rules were eventually overturned in court.
In recent days, the MAGA world has been engaged in a debate over the program, with one faction defending the visas and another claiming that the program allows foreigners to take American jobs.
Trump allies, including Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, have argued in online posts that the visa program benefits the country.
“The number of people who are highly talented, highly motivated engineers in the United States is very low,” Musk said in a post this week.
Musk, who was born in South Africa and is a naturalized U.S. citizen, said the reason he and others who built SpaceX and Tesla are in the United States is because of the H-1B program.
“Take a big step back and face yourself head on,” he said in a post. “I will go to war over this issue that you cannot understand.”
“These despicable idiots should be removed from the Republican Party,” Musk said in a post to X, later clarifying that he was referring to “those in the Republican Party who hate unrepentant racists.”
Musk's posts came in response to a post from Scott Adams, creator of the “Dilbert” comic, who said: “MAGA is taking a page from Democrats on how to lose elections while feeling good about themselves.”
Separately, Ramaswamy, who is collaborating with Musk to lead Trump's NGO Administration for Government Efficiency, argued in a post for X that he hopes American culture will once again prioritize “hard work over laziness.”
Ramaswamy also said in a post to the
Republicans who have criticized H-1B visas include far-right activists Laura Loomer and Steve Bannon. Former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley also weighed in, calling it “laziness” for the “tech industry to automatically turn to foreign workers to meet their needs.”
“Invest in our American workforce,” she said in a letter to X on Friday. “We have to invest in Americans first before we look elsewhere.”
Musk also faced accusations of censoring critics after more than a dozen conservatives, including Loomer, said their blue badge verification on the X had been revoked after they criticized Musk for his views on immigration.
