NYP report claims Trump backs H-1B visas for ‘highly skilled workers’

According to the New York Post, Trump was asked about H-1B visas, a program that allows for skilled foreign workers to come to the United States. The Post reported that Trump "supports immigration visas for highly skilled workers."

Trump reportedly told the outlet, “I’ve always liked the visas, I have always been in favor of the visas. That’s why we have them."

“I have many H-1B visas on my properties. I’ve been a believer in H-1B. I have used it many times. It’s a great program,” he added in his apparent comments to reporters.

However, the New York Times reports that the comments from Trump may be unclear about his position on H-1B visas. The outlet reported that the majority of employees that Trump has hired are on the similarly named H-2B visa, indicating that there may have been a mix-up.

The H-1B visa program differs from the H-2B visa program in that the first is for high-skilled labor such as in the tech industry and the second is for unskilled labor in industries such as agriculture.

Trump’s companies have gotten approved for over 1,000 H-2B visas in the years from 2003 to 2017 for positions such as cooks, housekeepers, as well as waiters at Mar-a-Lago and other businesses. In 2018, Trump’s company posted applications for 78 different H-2B visas for cooks as well as servers at Mar-a-Lago.

Trump’s companies since 2019 have only applied for a dozen H-1B visas, but most of these applications, for managerial positions, were withdrawn.

The issue of H-1B visas came up Christmas week after Trump nominated Sriram Krishnan as a senior policy advisor to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. He is set to work with incoming AI czar David Sacks and concerns were raised by tech moguls about the lack of highly-skilled workers in that sector.

Elon Musk, whose Tesla brought in over 700 H-1B workers in 2024, said the US needed "double" the 85,000 allotment. This led MAGA pundits to suggest that Musk and others in tech train and hire Americans for this work instead. An argument ensued over the value of American versus foreign labor.

The report from the New York Post suggests that Trump may be in agreement with Musk and Ramaswamy, however policy for the program is uncertain going into his second term.

This article has been updated to reflect additional reporting on the worker composition at Mar-a-Lago.