Trump faces backlash over H1B visa debate

Donald Trump is facing the first real test of his Presidency even before he enters the Oval Office. The Trump camp is imploding after differences over visas for skilled immigrant workers has divided them straight down the middle. On one side there are Trump’s core MAGA supporters and on the other are his new tech giant backers from Silicon Valley like Elon Musk.

The dispute has exposed the delicate balancing act Trump will have to do. MAGA supporters want Trump to keep his word and ensure that American jobs go to Americans, while big tech leaders who poured hundreds of millions of dollars into Trump’s re election, know the benefits of hiring skilled foreign workers with the H1B visa programme. Many of these workers are from India. Data shows that in 2023, over 70 per cent of H1B visa holders were Indians.

The civil war has imploded on social media with Elon Musk, himself an H1B visa holder at one time, lashing out at MAGA supporters saying he will “go to war” over the issue while asking the hard right to step back. Thousands of employees at his company Tesla are on the H1B visa programme. He put out a post on his platform ‘X’, saying “the number of people who are super talented engineers AND super motivated in the USA is far too low. If you want your TEAM to win the championship, you need to recruit top talent wherever they may be.”

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The latest controversy erupted after Trump appointed Sriram Krishnan, a tech entrepreneur born in India, as his senior policy adviser on artificial intelligence. Laura Loomer, a far right commentator and activist, had a meltdown on ‘X’, as she accused Trump of going in the opposite direction of his stated agenda on giving priority to Americans.

Krishnan has previously talked about making it easier for skilled foreign workers to come to the United States. Loomer also went on to make a series of blatantly racist posts describing Indians as “third world invaders” with low IQs.

Since then, the far right has indulged in open racism on social media against people from India. The entire episode has thrown cold water on those Indians who have turned into Trump supporters based on nothing other than his right leanings.

Trump’s other favourite person, Vivek Ramaswamy, has argued that American culture doesn’t produce enough skilled workers. In a post on ‘X’ he argued that “Our American culture has venerated mediocrity over excellence for way too long. That doesn’t start in college, it starts YOUNG. A culture that celebrates the prom queen over the math Olympiad champ, or the jock over the valedictorian, will not produce the best engineers.”

Ironically, Ramaswamy has seen a huge backlash from those who say he wants to promote people from his ethnic background. Both Musk and Ramaswamy have been hand-picked by Trump to oversee a Department of Government Efficiency.

Big tech vs Trump's MAGA base

The civil war in Trump’s universe exposes the complexities surrounding the immigration debate and the balancing act Trump will have to do once he is in office. In the past he has criticised the H1B visa programme. Laura Loomer has got support from GOP leaders like Nikki Haley who said “if the tech industry needs workers, invest in our education system. Invest in our American workforce. We must invest in Americans first before looking elsewhere.”

An analysis done in 2023 by the National Foundation for American Policy shows that 28 out of 43 AI companies in America have been co founded by immigrants. 70 per cent of full time graduate students in AI fields are foreigners.

Silicon Valley executives also have a much bigger role in Trump’s administration this time and have been among those pushing for more highly skilled foreign workers to come to the US to make sure they can compete with China. Will big tech and Trump’s MAGA base be able to reconcile their differences? That’s the big question as Donald Trump gets ready to return.