Fox News admits that Trump’s take on H-1B visas ‘left a lot of people confused’
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President-elect’s support of Elon Musk’s position on highly skilled immigrants at odds with wishes of much of his political base. The co-hosts of Fox & Friends Weekend were faced with a tricky job on Sunday morning — navigating the feud that has broken out amongst supporters of President-elect Donald Trump over H-1B visas for highly skilled immigrants, which significantly escalated on Saturday.
![[Elon Musk and Donald Trump]](https://static.independent.co.uk/2024/12/19/22/0da1e788f4f14c4c8c8cd5558f4d65a5.jpg)
“America First” acolytes on the far-right want stricter, draconian immigration measures applied to both illegal and legal migrants when Trump takes office in January. Among the loudest voices pushing this argument are far-right activist Laura Loomer, and former Trump adviser Steve Bannon.
In contrast, the Silicon Valley “tech bro” contingent led by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, which backed his election, wants better legal immigration routes such as the H-1B program to fill skills gaps in key sectors such as engineering, science, and technology.
Yesterday afternoon, the president-elect came out in support of Musk and the latter argument, saying he had always been a “believer” in the program and had employees at his properties in the country on H-1B visas. During the campaign and in his first term he had been against it, so the about-face has confused some of his core supporters.
Co-host Rachel Campos-Duffy noted that the president-elect coming out in favor of the H-1B visa “left a lot of people confused.”. Trying to rationalize support for skilled worker visas, her colleague Charlie Hurt remarked: “The idea of having a program that allows an Elon Musk to come into the country, I don’t think anybody has a problem with that, and certainly Donald Trump doesn’t have a problem with that. The problem with the program is that it’s been so abused and turned into a system where it is designed for big tech employers to get, maybe not cheap labor, but cheaper labor.”.
