After Trump won the election, you may recall there was a bit of a controversy over H-1B visas.
Both Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy highly encouraged the H-1B program, taking serious fire from the MAGA faithful, with Trump supporting their view. But it also brought attention to the H-2B program.
Reports surfaced this week that the administration has very quietly approved 65,000 of the H-2B visas, which could create a problem for Trump, including among his most loyal surrogates in the media.
It was late December when the jousting started with Musk and Ramaswamy against the MAGA loyalists.
Ramaswamy got the fun started, posting, "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.” He added, "A culture that celebrates the prom queen over the math olympiad champ, or the jock over the valedictorian, will not produce the best engineers.”
Musk backed him up, stating, "OF COURSE my companies and I would prefer to hire Americans and we DO, as that is MUCH easier than going through the incredibly painful and slow work visa process. HOWEVER, there is a dire shortage of extremely talented and motivated engineers in America."
Laura Ingraham, among others, went ballistic, openly challenging how such a policy was “America First.”
Donald Trump eventually chimed in, stating that he had “always liked” the program, even going so far as to say the United States did not have people smart enough for some of these jobs.
Trump went on to explain that other countries have been developing some of this technology for years, even decades, making them the experts.
He stated he wanted to see those experts come to this country to teach Americans.
Unfortunately for Trump, most people only heard the beginning part of that, and he really started to take some serious hits.
The H-2B visa program is far different. Skilled workers come over on the 1B program, while seasonal non-skilled laborers are part of the 2B program, but I wonder if that will make a difference to MAGA.
The administration had reportedly released more than 65,000 of the visas, with Rosemary Jenks, founder of the Immigration Accountability Project, explaining, “They announced that they were going to release 35,000 [in December], but apparently business owners have complained, so they’re going to release all [66,000].”
Before anyone loses their mind over this, they are not very high-paying jobs, usually under $12 per hour, and while these businesses try to recruit American workers to fill these positions, nobody wants to work for this low wage, so the H-2B visas fill the void.
If you want to put the true test to whether this is a good thing or a bad thing, consider this… The mainstream media has buried this story, likely because it goes completely against the immigration narrative Democrats and the media are currently pitching against Trump.
This is legal immigration, which we never had a problem with, so it’s not a story for them. To me, this is no big deal, but we will have to wait to see if people lump this in with H-1B visas, which could be a problem. And that is the exact reason I wrote this report. These immigrants are not the problem, so don’t lose faith when the spin masters eventually get ahold of this and work their magic.
