An online debate over high-skilled immigration between Elon Musk, Vivek Ramaswamy and MAGA evangelists reveals that Donald Trump’s Republican Party is grappling with growing pains as it prepares to retake the White House.
Days after Trump’s powerful allies in Silicon Valley took to social media to advocate for greater numbers of high-skilled immigrants, criticizing American culture for emphasizing “mediocrity over excellence,” some on the far right said such policies would make America “look like India.”
Republican leaders like Representative enter. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), who is trying to bridge the party divide on a key election issue for Trump, even though the president-elect has yet to weigh in on the debate.
Everyone fighting for high-skilled immigration “is committed to saving this country.” she wrote in.
She continued: “Here’s a harsh reality for some of you: There are some important MAGA voices with large social media platforms expressing their opinions, but they have never run a company that relies on thousands of skilled, highly trained workers with a need. constant. “They look for reliable labor, but they claim to have authority on the subject.”
His comments come as other Republican lawmakers have publicly denounced calls by tech entrepreneurs to increase high-skilled foreign immigration.
“The United States graduates more than half a million STEM students per year. If there is a problem in the technology workforce, then we must address it at the educational level, not matter the problem,” the representative said. mike collins (R-Ga.) in an X post on Thursday.
A Trump transition spokesperson declined to comment, but told POLITICO a x publication Incoming White House deputy chief of staff for policy Stephen Miller wrote Thursday citing a Trump speech from four years ago. “Above all, our children, of all communities, must be taught that to be an American is to inherit the spirit of the most adventurous and confident people who have ever walked the face of the Earth,” Miller quoted Trump in the speech delivered on July 3. 2020, at Mount Rushmore, which cited many examples of American innovation.
It is the latest chapter in a controversy that spread after far-right activist Laura Loomer criticized Trump for naming Sriram Krishnan, an Indian-American businessman and technology investor who has advocated lifting national limits on green cards, as its chief policy advisor on artificial intelligence. , calling him a “career leftist.”
Loomer wrote“We are replacing an invasion of third world immigrants with a technological invasion of the third world,” and later followed with“The ‘highly skilled immigrant’ has no running water or toilet paper.”
Musk hit Back, he wrote on Christmas Day that a “permanent shortage of excellent engineering talent” is the “fundamental limiting factor in Silicon Valley” that could be addressed by increasing visas for skilled workers. Ramaswamy followed up on Thursday with a post blaming a culture that “reveres Cory from ‘Boy Meets World,’ or Zach & Slater more than Screech in ‘Saved by the Bell,’ or ‘Stefan’ more than Steve Urkel in ‘Family Matters,'” a favoring of popularity over intelligence that “We will not produce the best engineers.”
That earned him a quick retort from Nick Fuentes, a conservative firebrand. who wrote“I don’t know who needs to hear this, but the latest push for H-1B visas really has nothing to do with jocks and nerds or high school prom; it’s about whether we want 500 million Indians move here.”
H1-B visas, which allow U.S. companies to employ foreign workers in technology and other short-term skilled jobs, have come under scrutiny as hardline immigration advocates say they drive down wages for U.S. workers.
In the latest twist, Loomer said Musk removed his X verification on Friday, as first reported by the anti-Trump Meidas Touch output. “So much for freedom of expression. Pretty totalitarian if you ask me.” Loomer wrote in a post. A spokesperson for X did not respond to questions.
Some of the Republican Party’s newcomers, the MAGA converts in Silicon Valley, are pushing an immigration agenda that boosts their industry in a party that has built its brand on anti-immigrant sentiment.
Some of those recent converts hope to reframe the heated disagreement as a healthy, open conversation, and a better alternative to the way Democrats are handling the issue.
“The MAGA debate is about getting people to share their ideas and getting others to subscribe to them,” said Cameron Winklevoss, a technology executive who endorsed Trump, in a publish in X. “Left debate is about people sharing party talking points (usually incorrect) and getting others who don’t subscribe to them to cancel them.”
Meanwhile, Democrats praise immigration as one of the powerful drivers of American prosperity.
in a Washington Post interviewRep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), who represents Silicon Valley, supported Krishnan and tech entrepreneurs who have chosen to become U.S. citizens.
the public“It’s GREAT that talent from around the world wants to come here, not China, and that Sriram can reach the highest levels. It’s called American exceptionalism.”
And it’s causing other Democrats to view the divide between Republicans and the broader Trump movement as racist.
“The far-right backlash against Indian immigrants confirms what we in the Democratic Party have known for a long time,” the representative said. Ritchie Torres (DN.Y.) said in a post on X. “That the far right is relentlessly hostile to all forms of non-European immigration, regardless of its legal status. It’s not about status. It’s about race. “The far right prefers ‘purity’ to prosperity.”