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Trump Seems to Alter Stance on H1-B Visas
During Thursday night's televised US Presidential debate between the four remaining candidates for the Republican nomination, front-runner Donald Trump acknowledged that he was "softening" his stated position against H1-B immigration visas [foxnews.com], because "we have to have talented people in this country".
Trump's web site describes the candidate's hard-line stance against several types of immigration, particular undocumented workers from Mexico, but also the H1-B program [donaldjtrump.com] for guest workers in IT and other STEM-related fields:
Increase prevailing wage for H-1Bs. We graduate two times more Americans with STEM degrees each year than find STEM jobs, yet as much as two-thirds of entry-level hiring for IT jobs is accomplished through the H-1B program...
Requirement to hire American workers first. Too many visas, like the H-1B, have no such requirement. In the year 2015, with 92 million Americans outside the workforce and incomes collapsing, we need companies to hire from the domestic pool of unemployed.
Asked point blank by debate moderator Megyn Kelly whether he was changing the policy described on his web site, Trump acknowledged that he was:
I’m changing. We need highly-skilled people in this country. If we can’t do it, we will get them in.
In fairness, Trump's rivals for the GOP nomination have also flip-flopped [talkingpointsmemo.com] on immigration issues [talkingpointsmemo.com] in recent years.
Trump's new position brings him closer to the views of financial media tycoon Mike Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York City, who is reportedly considering an independent run [nytimes.com] for the US Presidency. Bloomberg is a vocal advocate for unlimited H1-B visas [computerworld.com], an idea which is popular in the executive suites and boardrooms of Silicon Valley but is anathema to many rank-and-file US engineers.
