The MAGA faithful are enraged after President Donald Trump publicly defended the need for H-1B visas in an interview with Laura Ingraham, The Hill reported on Thursday.
H-1B visas, the program that allows skilled foreign workers into the country and is used extensively by tech companies, has been a growing divide in the Republican Party for some time. It already triggered uproar during the administration transition when tech billionaire Elon Musk, then a key adviser in the Trump administration, fiercely defended the program.
But the wound was ripped open once again after Trump told Ingraham "we also do have to bring in talent," and when she said "but, we have plenty of talent!" Trump replied, "No, you don't."
“I was appalled,” said former Virginia Trump campaign manager John Fredericks, currently a right-wing talk radio host. “I agree with the president and everything he’s done on just about every single issue, and he’s been the greatest president in history in my view for what he’s doing and what he’s done but these are two issues where I adamantly oppose both.”
Matt Walsh, a notorious far-right culture warrior who has called for transgender people to be "erased," was just as upset. "America is for Americans," he wrote on X. “Even if it were true that we don’t have enough talented people in this country, which it isn’t, that would be all the more reason to stop importing foreigners. We need to train up our own people. Give actual Americans a shot,” he said.
And Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), who has increasingly been bucking Trump and her party on a number of issues, staked out her anger here as well, posting to X, “I am solidly against allowing foreign students into our colleges and universities, like 600,000 Chinese students, just to financially prop them up. If they fail, they fail. The system in place isn’t helping our young people anyways.”
All of this comes as the Trump administration cracks down on immigrants and noncitizens in almost every other space, provoking clashes in large cities as federal agents prowl the streets.