By Jonathan Edwards, The Washington PostTesla CEO Elon Musk leaves the Senate Artificial Intelligence Insight Forum on Capitol Hill in September. over the legal immigration of highly skilled workers.
H-1B visas let U.S. employers temporarily hire foreign workers in specialty occupations for which they cannot find qualified Americans to do the job, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Applicants usually have to have at least a bachelor’s degree or equivalent experience in a specialty occupation and may work in the country for up to six years with the visa.
In contrast, H-2A visas are for agricultural labor and H-2Bs are for seasonal and short-term positions.The visas have roots in the 1952 Immigration and Nationality Act, through which lawmakers ended the blanket exclusion of immigrations based on race while establishing criteria based in part on employment and work skills, said Muzaffar Chishti, senior fellow at the Migration Policy Institute.
Loomer’s criticism sparked what she characterized as a “civil war” among Trump supporters about the tech industry’s reliance on immigrant workers with H-1B visas. Opponents of the program, including former Trump adviser Stephen K. Bannon, say the visa system lets companies exploit cheap foreign labor at the expense of Americans in need of work.
“The number of people who are super talented engineers AND super motivated in the USA is far too low,” Musk wrote on X last week. “If you want your TEAM to win the championship, you need to recruit top talent wherever they may be.”