Republicans are feuding over how many people can obtain H-1B visas, permits that allow foreign professionals to legally work in the United States. Today an estimated 600,000 foreigners with H-1B visas have tech, academic, medical and other jobs.
Two of President-elect Donald Trump’s most influential – yet informal – advisers, Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, want to expand the program to help Silicon Valley’s tech companies recruit what they call “excellent engineering talent.” Other conservatives with strong Trump ties, such as Steve Bannon and Laura Loomer, see this immigration program as a “scam” and a cheap labor program as pernicious as “illegal immigration.”
