WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — President-elect Donald Trump seems to be siding with Elon Musk and his different backers within the tech trade as a dispute over immigrant visas has divided his supporters.
Trump, in an interview with the New York Post on Saturday, praised using visas to carry expert international employees to the United States. The matter has develop into a flashpoint inside his conservative base.
“I’ve all the time preferred visas, I’ve all the time been pro-visa. That’s why we’ve got them,” Trump stated.
In the previous, in actual fact, Trump has criticized H-1B visas, calling them “very unhealthy” and “unfair” for American employees. During his first time period as president, he unveiled a “rent Americans” coverage that directed modifications to this system to strive to make sure that visas had been awarded to the highest-paid or most certified candidates.
Despite his criticism and makes an attempt to curb their use, he has additionally used visas in his companies previously, one thing he acknowledged in his interview on Saturday.
“I’ve lots of H-1B visas on my properties. I believed within the H-1B. I’ve used it many occasions. It’s an important program,” Trump advised the newspaper.
He doesn’t seem to have responded to a query about whether or not he plans to make modifications to the quantity or use of visas as soon as he takes workplace on Jan. 20.
Trump’s powerful immigration insurance policies, centered totally on immigrants who’re within the nation illegally, have been a cornerstone of his presidential marketing campaign and a precedence situation for his supporters.
But in latest days, his coalition has cut up in a public debate, largely performed out on-line, over the tech trade’s hiring of international employees. Members of the far-right Trump motion have accused Musk and different supporters of Trump’s new flank within the tech world of selling insurance policies at odds with Trump’s “America First” imaginative and prescient.
Software engineers and others within the tech trade have been utilizing H-1B visas for expert international employees and say they’re a vital device for hard-to-fill positions. But critics stated they undermine American residents who may take these jobs. Some on the correct have referred to as for this system to be eradicated.
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