Amid what has been portrayed as a “civil war” between the “MAGA Republicans and Big Tech,” over H-1B visas for skilled foreign workers, an economic advisor to the Trump campaign has asserted that there is no better way than immigrants to make America great again.
The restrictionists in President-elect Donald Trump’s Republican party want fewer visas, and the pro-growth wing wants more, Stephen Moore a visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation, noted in a commentary on Rasmussen Reports.
READ: Elon Musk calls for major reform of H-1B visa program (December 30, 2024)
The Trump campaign advisor noted that Trump himself has announced his support for expanding immigrant worker visas, telling the New York Post, “I’ve always liked the visas, I have always been in favor of the visas. That’s why we have them.”
Despite some traditional nativist concerns that immigrants “take jobs from American workers,” the most recent meta-study published in 2020 by the National Bureau of Economic Research found that, on balance, immigrants are “job creators, not job takers,” Moore wrote citing former AOL CEO Steve Case.
“That is because immigrants today as always have high rates of starting businesses, fill niches in the workforce, and create jobs with their purchases of American goods and services,” he stated.
The nonpartisan American Immigration Council recently found that 45% of American Fortune 500 companies were founded by immigrants and their children, Moore noted.
The businesses they create are not just in the tech sector, They include retail (Kohl’s), telecommunications (Verizon, AT&T), finance (JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup), pharmaceuticals (Pfizer, Moderna), media (News Corp, Fox), transportation (Boeing, JetBlue) and petroleum (Phillips 66, Occidental Petroleum), to name a few. And let’s not forget Elon Musk’s Tesla and SpaceX.
The revenues of these first- and second-generation immigrant companies exceed that of any other nation, Moore noted.
Elon Musk, who will co-chair the Department of Government Efficiency commission, says he thinks we should double visas for skilled immigrants “yesterday.” He added, “The number of people who are super talented engineers AND super motivated in the USA is far too low. … If you want your TEAM to win the championship, you need to recruit top talent wherever they may be.”
READ: Trump sides with Musk in H-1B war (December 29, 2024)
“It is clear that hardworking and entrepreneurial immigrants in combination with good old Yankee ingenuity is one of the greatest comparative advantages the United States has over nearly every other nation in the world — especially China,” Moore stated asserting, “I can’t think of a better way to make America great again.
Meanwhile, Newsweek cited a Rasmussen Reports poll conducted in November to suggest a majority of Americans opposes expansion of the H-1B visa program to address workforce shortages as suggested by Trump and Musk and favors domestic solutions to labor shortages.
Newsweek said it has contacted Trump’s transition team for comment via email.
The November poll, according to Newsweek, found that 60% of Americans believed the country already had enough talented people to train and recruit for higher-skill roles, while 26% supported increasing the number of foreign workers for such positions.
According to the Rasmussen Reports poll, in addition to respondents saying the country had enough talented people for higher-skill roles, 59% believed companies facing shortages in sectors such as construction, manufacturing and hospitality should focus on raising wages and intensifying efforts to recruit unemployed Americans, even if it resulted in higher consumer prices. Only 24% of respondents supported recruiting foreign workers to keep costs down.
Industries such as technology, finance and academia are among the most frequent participants in the H-1B visa program. In 2024, major corporations—including Amazon, Googleand Meta—secured thousands of H-1B visas. Tesla, Musk’s electric car company, reportedly brought hundreds of employees to the US through the program.