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Silicon Valley vs. MAGA: Why immigration is splitting Trump's camp
00:15:05
Tech companies have long struggled to hire enough Americans with technical expertise, and to fill that shortfall, they’ve often hired immigrants with green cards or H-1B visas. Now, Silicon Valley leaders — with Elon Musk at the helm — see an opportunity to recruit even more foreign-born workers. But that doesn’t sit well with the immigration restrictionists in Trump’s camp, which amounts to a political showdown for Republicans, especially as Congress looks to tackle immigration when Trump takes office. Steven Overly sits down with POLITICO tech reporter Brendan Bordelon to break it all down.
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- [00:01]
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- [00:29]
Stephen Overle
Shopify.Com hey, welcome back to POLITICO Tech. Today's Wednesday, January 8th. I'm Stephen Overle. If you were wise enough to log off social media over the holidays, you may have missed a big blowup over high skilled immigration and specifically the H1B visa. Tech companies have long struggled to hire enough Americans with technical expertise. And to fill that shortfall, they've hired immigrants, typically people with green cards or H1B visas. And now Silicon Valley leaders with Elon Musk at the helm see an opportunity to recruit even more foreign born workers under President Elect Donald Trump. But that doesn't sit well with the immigration restrictionists in Trump's camp, the supporters who backed Trump's aggressive rhetoric about illegal immigration and mass deportations. All of that amounts to a political showdown for Republicans, especially as Congress looks to tackle immigration when Trump takes office. Politico Tech reporter Brendan Bourdelon has been covering this tension and joins me to break it down. Here's our conversation. Hey Brendan, welcome back to Politico Tech.
- [01:53]
Brendan Bourdelon
Hey Stephen, thanks for having me.
- [01:55]
Stephen Overle
So this big tension among Trump supporters over immigration really erupted over the holidays. What exactly happened?
- [02:03]
Brendan Bourdelon
Yeah, I mean, there were signs this was coming for a little while. Elon Musk had been tweeting pretty much ever since the election about a desire to boost high skilled immigration. This was gonna be a top priority of the incoming administration. That obviously was eyebrow raising for many given how aggressive the first Trump administration was at sort of going after immigration of all stripes. Not just illegal, but also legal immigration, but it really exploded over the holidays. There was a quite fiery debate on social media between Elon Musk, David Sacks, he's a Silicon Valley venture capital who is coming into the administration, and many other sort of hangers on in Trump's orbit when it comes to the tech sector and then the immigration restrictionists who were very upset about the appointment of this person named Sriram Krishnan to be Trump's AI advisor. He's actually not advising Trump on immigration, but he has come out in favor of high skilled immigrants getting foreign nationals with expertise in science or technology or engineering or Math into the country. He himself is an immigrant from India. He's now a US citizen, but he came to the US from India. And that sort of was part of the whole fight. There was a lot of frankly concerning sort of racial rhetoric around that. And Elon Musk Sachs and these other people defended him, defended his point of view on high skilled immigration. And it was really this sort of multi day social media brawl that ultimately Trump stepped in and said he supports the Musk side of the equation. But it does not look really resolved at this point at all. It seems like the immigration restrictionists and the techies, the Silicon Valley folks now in Trump's orbit, are destined to be fighting over this into this new year.
- [03:32]
Stephen Overle
Well, let's take a step back. What is the core issue here that they're really ultimately arguing about?
- [03:38]
Brendan Bourdelon
So the broader issue is something that the tech industry has talked about for decades at this point, which is that there are just not enough STEM experts being educated in the United States among native born citizens to hit all of the demands that we see coming down the pike in artificial intelligence, in microchip design and manufacturing. These are probably the two biggest areas. But all these emerging technologies, there's a sense that there's not enough high end STEM talent, particularly masters PhDs, and it's just not being produced in the United States that the numbers need it. There's a lot of reasons for that and we can get into that. But at the moment, the tech industry says there's not enough time to produce these folks domestically. We need to basically source them from abroad. There are various ways the tech sector has done that. One way is through the H1B visa program. This is a temporary skilled worker program. The companies apply for these things and the immigrants who take them are basically, they have to work at this one company that is sponsoring them under this H1B program. There are other ways to do this as well. One is by boosting access to green cards. So that's like permanent residence status. There are a lot of different ways to do this. But what basically would happen is, you know, if you're computer scientists from India and you have, you know, marketable skills that the US really needs, you'll be able to get a green card, you can work here permanently, you can switch jobs from one tech company to another, that kind of thing. And there have been efforts to reform various aspects of that program, various aspects of the H1B program on the Hill and elsewhere. And there's a lot of bipartisan support for those efforts. The problem has often Been though exactly these kinds of blowups that we saw over the holidays. Politicians get scared when they see all of the backlash and things sort of stall out. And that's where we are now. At least until Musk and these other Silicon Valley folks have come in and kind of potentially changed the calculus.
- [05:17]
Stephen Overle
Well, this issue has been long standing. I mean, the tech industry has talked for a long time about stapling a green card to every STEM diploma or a PhD diploma. At least this was an issue that came up during Trump's first term. You know, he dealt with issues around H1B visas in particular during his first administration. What is his track record on this and what is he saying now?
- [05:38]
Brendan Bourdelon
Yeah, so it's very important with Trump on this issue and perhaps all issues to look at what he says, but also look at what he does and what he has done. What he said on this issue is actually quite positive when it comes to the tech sector's point of view. And that's actually going back all the way to 2018. He said something about stapling green cards to high end diplomas. I wanna say it was back in 2018. That was while his administration was doing pretty much everything it could to cut down on the number of legal high skilled immigrants coming into the. A lot of this was led by Stephen Miller, who is a policy advisor for Trump in his first term, is now coming in as a deputy White House chief of staff for policy. In this term. Stephen Miller is very much opposed, I think to a wide range of immigrants and that includes illegal immigrants. He has been on the record against H1BS in particular. There's a concern that H1BS basically depress American wages and make it harder for high skilled Americans, native born Americans to get jobs. He has been sort of on the forefront of that. Trump has continued to talk up a big game on this issue though. June of last year during the campaign he said he wants to staple a green card to any diploma, not just the high skilled STEM diploma, but even if you get a diploma from like a four year college, a two year college and you're a foreign national, he wants you here. This is a big priority of the venture capitalists in Trump's orbit. It's a big priority of Elon Musk. These folks are obviously ascendant now in the GOP and at the White House. That is why the immigration restriction is so freaking out about this. And I think it's gonna be a big battle to see what happens. At the moment, Trump seems to be support the tech sector on this question, but Trump can, he's a mercurial guy. Anything can happen. And I think if he sees his base start to really, really get upset about this, things could change.
- [07:17]
Stephen Overle
Is it fair to say the tech industry sees kind of an opportunity here then, if Trump is sort of signaling his support for their position?
- [07:25]
Brendan Bourdelon
Yeah, I mean, I think even before the blow up late last month, there was a lot of opportunity that I think tech sector saw. Tech lobbyists were, you know, they've long sort of wanted to move forward on this. They've been stymied repeatedly. The last time was in 20 when they got quite close in the Chips and Science act in including language that would have basically allowed experts in science or technology related to microchip manufacturing. Those experts would have been able to jump the green card line. They would be exempted from per country caps on green cards. So there was a lot of movement in the recent past and a lot of legislative language floating around there, but there really wasn't a sense that there was a political dynamic that would allow them to move forward until now. And it's counterintuitive because again, Trump is seen as this immigration hawk more than seen. I think he is very clearly an immigration hawk, and particularly on illegal immigration. He and his party have vowed to crack down, mass deportations, all this stuff. But there is this sense, and you heard it from some lobbyists and some other folks last month, that maybe in the same way that only Richard Nixon, this huge China hawk, could go to China and open up the United States to the Chinese Communist Party back in the 70s, Trump might be really the only person in American politics who can convince immigration restrictionists, convince his own party that this small subset of immigrants, this slice of high tech, high skilled immigrants, actually, they're okay, we can let them in and we should do what we can to sort of open the doors for them. That's how the lobby is viewing it at the moment. I don't think they saw anything last month that would disabuse them of that point of view. Obviously, they also saw a pretty significant political backlash, and they might expect that they might not. But I think certainly they see an opportunity that did not exist in the past and may not have existed under a Democratic administration.
- [09:07]
Stephen Overle
It's interesting for the expectation to be. Maybe Trump can add some, you know, nuance to the immigration debate and create more differentiation between legal versus illegal immigration. Yeah, what are immigration restrictionists saying about all this?
- [09:21]
Brendan Bourdelon
So they're kind of nervous, obviously. They were really not happy to see Musk and David Sachs and Sriram Krishnan and these other people push this issue last month. That was a big part of the reason why they blew up at them on social media. Musk did not back down. David Sacks did not back down. They got Trump to agree with them. So the signs are not necessarily super favorable for the immigration restrictionists on this. Stephen Miller did not come out and say, I oppose what Elon Musk is trying to do here. It's worth noting that Musk and Sachs and all these other people, they invest in companies and they run companies that rely on this foreign talent. Some of it I think is clearly ideological for them, but some of it is pretty crass. Dollars and cents, right? I mean, their companies perform much better when they have access to these skilled foreign workers, largely out of India and China. So at some level this is pure self interest. And these immigration restrictionists say not without there's some cause here. The H1B program in particular, I think has been used at times for tech companies to pay workers less. They are able to control these workers because if they leave their job, they lose their immigration status. This is something the immigration restrictionists have brought up and there's something you hear on Capitol Hill as a potential area for reform. Even I think supporters of high skilled immigrants and high skilled immigration say there are issues with the H1B program. And I actually think that's why you see a lot of lawmakers in both parties, including Republicans, starting to talk about access to green cards. So more permanent residents for these high skilled high tech jobs. It allows these workers to change occupations. It often means much higher wages. It's often for people that have skills that really cannot be matched in the domestic workforce. So I think that's likely where the conversation's going to go. And I also think that's likely a harder argument for the immigration restrictionists to push H1BS. A lot of people don't like them. Green cards, permanent residency for really high end high skilled tech experts. A lot of those problems don't exist. So I think that's likely to get a lot of momentum on the Hill this year.
- [11:32]
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- [12:03]
Stephen Overle
So speaking of the Hill, I mean, this is obviously attention sounds like within the administration that's coming in. They can't do anything though, without Congress. You know, Congress is expected, though, to make immigration one of the first issues it deals with when Trump takes office. What impact are you anticipating this will have on Republicans who do now control the House and the Senate?
- [12:23]
Brendan Bourdelon
Yeah, yeah. Well, I just said it would have some momentum, but actually I'll roll that back a little bit because I think it's going to have sort of qualified momentum. I talked to Jim Jordan, who's the House Judiciary Chair. His committee is going to have jurisdiction over immigration. I've also talked to Chuck Grassley in the Senate. He's going to be the Judiciary Chair in the Senate side. Both of them have sort of talked about an interest in high skilled immigration and boosting that number, but also in sort of making sure that the border is secured first, illegal immigration is addressed, they say Jordan in particular has said that this is an issue that kind of has to be sequentially. So if you're going to look at high skilled immigration, that's fine. He's happy to talk with Musk about it. He's happy to talk with Trump about it. But you have to lock down the border first. You have to go after the illegal immigrants first. I think he's worried perhaps with some reason that if they reverse those operations that the GOP base will be quite upset. So there's a sense that you kind of have to prove that you're taking the broader concerns about immigration seriously before you try to enhance and increase the number of the relatively small number of high skilled science and technology immigrants that Musk and others would like to seek. Come in. So I think there's been a lot of talk about it right away. You're obviously seeing that talk happen right now in terms of rubber meeting the road and legislative language actually moving. We might have to wait until there's some sort of immigration crackdown that Republicans can point to and say, look, we did this. Now we're going to do this other thing for stem immigrants. And so stay tuned and we'll see how quickly they can get that done in 2025.
- [13:47]
Stephen Overle
Right. Yeah. With the immigration debate, you know, it's sort of this tension I feel always between folks who want comprehensive reform done all at once, folks who want incremental reform. And of course both have kind of their consequences for parties to deal with. Yeah, listen, Brendan, appreciate you giving us the lowdown and being here on Politico Tech.
- [14:05]
Brendan Bourdelon
Yep, no problem. Thanks for having me.
- [14:10]
Stephen Overle
That's all for today's Politico Tech. If you enjoy Politico Tech, be sure to subscribe. And for more tech news, subscribe to our newsletters, Digital Future Daily and Morning Tech. Our managing producer is Annie Reiss. Our producer is Afra Abdullah. I'm Stephen Overle. See you back here tomorrow.