A stoush has erupted among Trump supporters over the issue of foreign workers in the United States, and incoming President Donald Trump has picked a side many of his backers — including high-profile ones — have railed against.
Many are describing the turmoil as a “MAGA civil war” — and it took a new turn when key Trump supporter and billionaire tech CEO Elon Musk vowed to go to “war” to defend a visa program for foreign tech workers.
“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,” he wrote, referring to the visa type.
“I will go to war on this issue the likes of which you cannot possibly comprehend.”
Many Trump supporters are expecting a crackdown on immigration and local workers to be prioritised when Trump takes office on 20 January.
What is the H-1B visa?
The H-1B visa allows US companies to temporarily employ foreign workers in specific industries including technology and engineering.
Musk, a naturalised US citizen born in South Africa, has held an H-1B visa, which his company, Tesla, obtained 724 of this year.
He had support from Vivek Ramaswamy, his co-chair of the incoming Trump administration’s proposed Department of Government Efficiency.
Ramaswamy, a US citizen whose parents immigrated from India, said that “culture” was why top tech companies often hired foreign-born and first-generation engineers over local American workers.
“Our American culture has venerated mediocrity over excellence for way too long (at least since the 90s and likely longer). That doesn’t start in college, it starts YOUNG,” he wrote.
What started the ‘MAGA civil war’?
The debate started when some Trump supporters like Laura Loomer railed against the appointment of Sriram Krishnan, a Silicon Valley venture capitalist, as Trump’s administration’s AI policy adviser.
“How will be [we] control immigration in our country and promote America First innovation when Trump appointed this guy who wants to REMOVE all restrictions on green card caps in the United States,” she wrote.
“So that foreign students (which makes up 78% of the employees in Silicon Valley) can come to the US and take jobs that should be given to American STEM students.”
Musk argued that the US was suffering from a shortage of “excellent engineering talent”.
“I am referring to bringing in via legal immigration the top ~0.1% of engineering talent as being essential for America to keep winning.”
What were the reactions?
On Friday, Steve Bannon, a longtime Trump confidante, critiqued “big tech oligarchs” for supporting the H-1B program and cast immigration as a threat to Western civilisation.
Ramaswamy’s views on immigration was criticised by some prominent Republicans.
Nikki Haley, the former US ambassador to the UN, said that “there is nothing wrong with American workers or American culture”.
“All you have to do is look at the border and see how many want what we have. We should be investing and prioritising in Americans, not foreign workers,” she wrote on X.
Former Republican congressman Matt Gaetz was another Trump supporter who posted against “the tech bros” on X.
“We welcomed the tech bros when they came running our way to avoid the 3rd grade teacher picking their kid’s gender – and the obvious Biden/Harris economic decline. We did not ask them to engineer an immigration policy,” he said.
What is Trump’s position on the H-1B visa program?
After days of debate, the president-elect sided with Elon Musk in an interview with the New York Post.
“I’ve always liked the visas, I have always been in favour of the visas. That’s why we have them,” he said.
“I have many H-1B visas on my properties. I’ve been a believer in H-1B. I have used it many times. It’s a great program.”
During his presidency, the Trump administration moved towards limiting access to the visa on multiple occasions. But in his recent presidential campaign, he had a different approach towards the program.
Trump has promised to deport all immigrants who are in the US illegally, deploy tariffs to help create more jobs for American citizens and severely restrict immigration.
With additional reporting by Reuters.
