President Donald Trump defended H-1B visas during an interview that aired Tuesday night, arguing foreign labor is needed at times because U.S. workers do not have "certain talents."
Trump made the remarks during a Fox News interview when asked whether his administration would prioritize the costly visas that allow skilled workers from overseas to temporarily work in the United States. He said the U.S. has to “bring in talent.”
When pressed by Fox News host Laura Ingraham, who said, "We have plenty of talented people here," Trump responded: “No, you don’t have — you don’t have certain talents. And you have to — people have to learn.”
Trump has touted securing investments from abroad, including those that would boost the auto and artificial intelligence industries. But he suggested in the interview that some American workers might not be the best prepared for various phases of production.
"You can’t take people off an unemployment, like an unemployment line, and say, 'I’m going to put you into a factory,'" Trump said.
"You can't just say a country is coming in, going to invest $10 billion to build a plant, and going to take people off an unemployment line who haven't worked in five years, and they're going to start making their missiles. It doesn't work that well," he added.
Trump's comments acknowledging the role played by immigrants in economic growth and innovation contradicts some of his messaging during his administration's immigration crackdown, which has also made life more difficult for many immigrants who are in the U.S. legally.
In September, Trump signed a proclamation raising the fee that companies have to pay to obtain H-1B worker visas to $100,000, in a move that marked a win for immigration hardliners on Capitol Hill but posed a costlier hurdle to tech executives seeking qualified workers from abroad.
Weeks before Trump returned to office, some of his allies erupted into a battle over the H-1B visa program, which was signed into law by President George H.W. Bush in 1990.
Vivek Ramaswamy, a former 2024 Republican presidential candidate who Trump has endorsed for governor of Ohio, was heavily criticized for writing in a social media post in December that American culture “venerated mediocrity over excellence," and that "a culture that celebrates the prom queen over the math olympiad champ, or the jock over the valedictorian, will not produce the best engineers."
Trump ally Elon Musk at the time defended tech companies recruiting "top talent wherever they may be" so they can be the best.
The comments from Ramaswamy and Musk were met by harsh criticism from some Trump allies advocating for a hardline approach to immigration across the board and revealed a point of tension between the president's allies on Capitol Hill and executives in Silicon Valley.
Trump has also talked about making changes to immigration laws for other sectors. Earlier this year he floated a "temporary pass" for immigrant farmworkers amid growing concerns about the agricultural labor force following ICE operations.
Trump said at the time that farming is "hard work to do, and a lot of people aren’t going to do it, and you end up destroying a farmer because you took all the people away, it’s a problem.”
