Conflict in the MAGA world after a fierce controversy over skilled migration

Less than a month to Donald Trump's second term and amid the holiday season, an intense internal debate broke out in the Republican Party, at least on social media. It turns out that a post by Vivek Ramaswamy about skilled immigration and American culture blew up in the MAGA world.

The waters were calm until Wednesday, when the president-elect nominated venture capitalist Sriram Krishnan as his artificial intelligence policy adviser. In the wake of his appointment, recent statements in which he talked about eliminating per-country caps on green cards and skilled immigrant visas began to be refloated.

"Anything to remove country caps for green cards / unlock skilled immigration would be huge," he wrote on X last Nov. 14.

The aforementioned type of skilled immigrant visa is known as H-1B and allows U.S. employers to temporarily hire foreign workers with special skills or qualifications. According to the Department of Labor, these are usually valid for three years, although they can be extended for up to six years.

The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has a statutory limit of 65,000 H-1B visas per year, with an additional 20,000 for applicants with college degrees.

Although the topic didn't seem very scalable on social media, Vivek Ramaswamy, Elon Musk and other players turned it into an internal ideological discussion about skilled immigration.

Ramaswamy's phrase that sparked the controversy

While the discussion has not been "mainstream " so far, that changed on Thursday morning, Dec. 26, when Ramaswamy commented on it on his X account and fanned the flames of the debate over skilled immigration to the United States.

"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," the entrepreneur expressed.

"A culture that celebrates the prom queen over the math olympiad champ, or the jock over the valedictorian, will not produce the best engineers," he added.

His statements did not sit well with some Republicans and MAGA opinion leaders. One of the most vocal about it was journalist Laura Loomer, who responded as follows: "Our country was built by white Europeans, actually. Not third-world invaders from India. It's not racist against Indians to want the original MAGA policies I voted for. I voted for a reduction in H-1B visas. Not an extension."

Similarly, Matt Gaetz, the former congressman and Trump's first choice for attorney general, commented on the matter. 

"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 wrote, clearly referencing Elon Musk and Ramaswamy.

Even Nikki Haley spoke on the issue. The two had had sharp run-ins during the initial Republican primary debates.

"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 prioritizing in Americans, not foreign workers," the former South Carolina governor said.

Elon Musk: "You have to recruit the best talent, wherever they are"

The owner of X also waded into the controversy to support the worldview of his future partner in the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). In some discussions with users of his social network, he explained the need to encourage skilled foreign immigration by comparing the United States to a sports team.

"There is a permanent shortage of excellent engineering talent. It is the fundamental limiting factor in Silicon Valley. The number of people who are super-talented AND super-motivated engineers in the U.S. is too low," he posted on his X account.

"You have to recruit top talent, wherever they are. That allows the whole TEAM to win," he stated.

What did Trump say on the campaign trail?

Still, as a Republican candidate, Trump was asked in Georgia about the difference between his immigration policy and Kamala Harris'.

"Yes, we want to have as many people come in as possible but they have to come in legally. We don't want murderers, we don't want drug dealers, we don't want human traffickers, we don't want people from prison that are being let out after murdering somebody. We don't want to have that. We want to have great people come," he replied to a voter's query.

"We have to have borders. But we also want to have people come in. You know we actually need people. We have all these companies that we're going to bring in through taxation, we're going to bring in a lot of companies, they've got to have people to work, otherwise bringing them is not going to work either. You need the people. But they're going to come in through testing," he added.