On a recent Saturday, the soon-to-be President Donald Trump fervently endorsed the much sought after H-1B visa program. This program facilitates the entry of foreign professionals in ‘specialty occupations’ into the United States.
These visas have sparked disagreement around whether or not they should be perpetuated and augmented since the affluent tycoon backs the initiative. He avowed, ‘The visas have always garnered my support. I have constantly advocated for them. That’s the exact reason we have them.’
The H-1B visa program is designed for employers aiming to recruit foreign talent in ‘specialty occupations or as fashion models.’ The Department of Labor necessitates that these ‘specialty occupations’ ask for a prospective visa holder to possess at least a bachelor’s degree or its equivalent.
Frequently, this visa category is leveraged for hiring professionals in sectors such as mathematics, engineering, and technology. Based on the statistics derived from H-1B data, Tesla got the approval for 742 H-1B petitions for initial employment in the fiscal year 2024. This figure is more than double their preceding year’s tally of 328.
However, while campaigning for the presidential post for the first time back in 2016, Trump exhibited a divergent perspective on the H-1B program. He dubbed it as detrimental to workers and suggested that it should be terminated.
He argued that it should be abolished completely, ‘The visa program is truly harmful for workers. It’s imperative to assert—it’s destructive,’ Trump stated then. ‘In terms of business, it’s destructive for our workers. It’s unjust for our workers. Hence, we should exterminate it.’
Despite this previous stance, recent reports indicated that Trump’s utilization of the H-1B visa program has been minimal. Instead, he has regularly employed the loosely correlated yet profoundly distinctive H-2B visa program. This program pertains to positions such as gardeners and housekeepers.
In addition, he has also frequently used the H-2A program which is meant to accommodate agricultural workers. Federal records show that over the prior two decades, his enterprises have been granted permission to employ more than a thousand workers utilizing these two H-2 visa programs.