Trump settles debate on skilled immigration, publicly supports H-1B visas

Donald Trump settled the intense Republican debate over skilled immigration and H-1B visas. After 48 hours in which the conflict between the "MAGA" faction of the Republican Party and the duo formed by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy escalated, the president-elect opined on the issue in an interview with The New York Post.

The owner of X and the former presidential candidate defended qualified immigration and the increase of H-1B visas per country, thus confronting characters such as Matt Gaetz, Laura Loomer and even Nikki Haley, who disagreed with them on social media.

In internal conflict, even some media dubbed it a "MAGA civil war," raged for nearly three days until Trump appeared to close the debate on Saturday afternoon.

"I’ve always liked the visas, I have always been in favor of the visas. That’s why we have them," the president-elect expressed in dialogue with The New York Post.

"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," he added.

The controversy began unexpectedly after Sriram Krishnan was announced as an artificial intelligence policy adviser in the second Trump administration. In the wake of his appointment, recent statements in which he spoke of 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 on Nov. 14.

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

"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. ... A culture that celebrates the prom queen over the math olympiad champ, or the jock over the valedictorian, will not produce the best engineers," Ramaswamy pointed out, thus unleashing responses from Loomer, Gaetz and Haley.

What are H-1B visas?

These visas allow 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.

In turn, 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.

What are Americans saying about skilled immigration?

According to a poll recently released by the Economic Innovation Group, 78% of voters support skilled immigration to the United States.

This type of immigration has broad bipartisan support. Indeed, it has 86% acceptance among those who said they were Democrats and 73% among those who described themselves as conservatives.