Nalin Haley, son of former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and 2024 Republican presidential contender Nikki Haley, has drawn attention for his strong opposition to the H-1B visa program. Taking a hardline stance on immigration, he has called for a complete halt to the skilled worker visa, a policy that has long benefited mostly Indian professionals in the United States.
In a recent interview, Nalin Haley expressed frustration over the current job market, saying that none of his friends, despite earning “great degrees from great schools,” have been able to find employment.
Speaking to Fox News, the 24-year-old stirred controversy with his comments on immigration and jobs in the United States. His remarks touched a sensitive nerve, particularly around H-1B visas. He said, “We are seeing kids graduate with six figures in debt and not having a job to show for it. My main friend group graduated with great degrees from great schools. It’s been a year and a half since graduation. Not one of them has a job.”
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“And when we look at all the other statistics, we see that 58% of recent college graduates are unemployed. Of those 42% that are employed, 50% of them have temporary jobs or jobs that don’t require a degree,” Nalin Haley added.
During the interview, Nalin Haley was pressed on whether his strong opposition to the H-1B visa program seemed contradictory, given his own Indian American background. The interviewer pointed out that the visa is issued for many skilled professionals from India to work in the United States.
In response, he stated, “I mean, they shouldn’t be because I’ve seen how it’s affected my friends and those around me. At the end of the day, my loyalty is to America.”
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“What we saw with Obama is that we had a lot of immigrants coming here, and the thought was, ‘Oh, you don’t need to change. You don’t need to have your loyalty to America. You could be who you are’. No, you need to assimilate. And you need to act like an American and support American values and support American workers and American people,” Nalin said.
Nalin shared with Fox News, “We need to get rid of the foreign worker visas. We need to ban H-1B visas. And we need to punish companies that are not putting American workers first and are putting foreigners first. It is a massive problem.”
Earlier, Nalin Haley had also drawn attention on social media for his anti-immigration remarks during an exchange with British American journalist Mehdi Hasan on X. The back and forth began after Nalin voiced support for ending what he described as “mass immigration” to the United States, framing it as a matter of protecting national interests. Hasan was quick to challenge him, pointing out that Haley’s own grandfather immigrated to the U.S. from India in 1969, a reminder, he said, of the irony in criticizing immigration given his family’s immigrant roots.