White House defends Trump’s H-1B visa stand as ‘nuanced’ amid backlash
White House defends Donald Trump’s ‘nuanced’ H-1B stance, saying foreign workers may be needed initially but U.S. jobs will remain the priority
Defending US President Donald Trump’s views on the H-1B visas, the White House has said that his stand on the issue reflected a “nuanced and common-sense opinion.” The remarks were made by White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt while speaking to reporters.
Leavitt said that President Trump would allow bringing foreign workers to the US “just at the beginning,” but wants them to be eventually replaced by American workers.
‘Trump wants jobs for US workers’
Elaborating further, Leavitt said that Trump wants foreign companies investing trillions of dollars in the USA, to bring foreign workers for niche production to set up the manufacturing facilities, but ultimately aims at ensuring that those jobs come to American workers.
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“He wants to see if foreign companies are investing trillions of dollars in the United States of America, and they're bringing foreign workers with them to create very niche things like batteries. He wants to see that at the beginning, to get those manufacturing facilities and those factories up and running, but ultimately, the President always wants to see American workers in those jobs,” added Leavitt as quoted by IANS.
She further stated that Trump has made it clear to foreign companies that if they’re investing in the US, they “better be hiring my people,” adding that there has been “a lot of misunderstanding of the President's position” on the issue.
What Trump said
The statement by the White House comes days after President Trump defended his stand on legal immigration stating that saying he would welcome “thousands of people” from abroad to train American workers in tech-related industries.
Also Read: Trump appears to soften on H-1B visa, cites need for 'certain talents'
“You can't come in, open up a massive computer chip factory for billions and billions of dollars like it’s being done in Arizona and think you're going to hire people often from the unemployment line to run it. They're going to have to bring thousands of people with them. I am going to welcome those people,” Trump recently said in Washington.
He admitted that he may “take a little heat” from his conservative base about his position on bringing in foreign workers.
The repercussions
Trump’s remarks have started a debate, with Republican and conservative leaders calling for the visa programme’s removal. A White House spokesperson earlier told IANS that the “$100,000 fee for new H-1B visa applications is a significant first step to stop abuses of the system.”
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The spokesperson said President Donald Trump has “done more than any president in modern history to tighten our immigration laws and put American workers first.”
White House spokeswoman Taylor Rogers said that the payment helps ensure American workers are not replaced by lower-paid foreign labour. The policy has drawn broad opposition and legal challenges, even as India-born workers secured most approved visas in 2024.