MAGA’s other immigration battle

Summary

Today, Explained: “MAGA’s other immigration battle”

Date: November 25, 2025
Host: Ested Herndon (for Vox)
Guests: Michelle Hackman (WSJ), Vivek Wadhwa (Tech Entrepreneur), Donald Trump (clips), Elon Musk (clips)

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Episode Overview

This episode explores the surprising and fraught MAGA-era debate over legal immigration—specifically H1B visas for high-skilled foreign workers. While former President Trump and his base are known for hardline stances against undocumented immigration, his views and policies regarding skilled legal immigration remain conflicted. The episode covers the historical push-pull between pro-business Republicans and the nativist hard right, the recent imposition of a $100,000 H1B visa fee, and the business consequences for America’s tech and innovation economy. Featuring Michelle Hackman and tech CEO Vivek Wadhwa, the conversation highlights how this policy battle pits Trump’s political interests against business needs and the U.S. tradition of skilled immigration.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Trump’s Dual-Edged Approach to Immigration (00:00–04:53)

• Trump’s rhetoric against illegal immigration has been consistent:

  “All illegal entry will immediately be halted and we will begin the process of returning millions and millions of criminal aliens back to the places from which they came.” — Donald Trump (00:05)

• But legal immigration, especially H1B visas, is contentious even among MAGA loyalists. Trump sometimes defends the need for high-skilled foreign workers, even as right-wing critics oppose the program.

• Ested Herndon on the contradiction:

  “So why is President Trump supporting a program that his MAGA base doesn’t like?” (00:48)

Notable moment: Trump pushes back on a Fox News host about H1B visas.

“You also do have to bring in talent...when we have plenty of talented people.” — Donald Trump (00:42)

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2. History and Controversy of H1B Visas (02:21–04:53)

• Michelle Hackman explains how H1Bs became central to U.S. tech labor:
  • Many IT outsourcing firms revolve around hiring mostly Indian men on H1Bs for cheaper tech labor.
  • Companies increasingly replaced in-house IT staff with outsourced labor from H1B-dependent firms.
• During Trump’s first term, a tug-of-war between America First nationalists and pro-business elements in the administration led to only marginal changes in the visa program.

“The story of the first Trump administration was...the MAGA right hates the H1B. A lot of other big business owners...love the H1B. So you see this policy tug of war…the result is overall, nothing really happens." — Michelle Hackman (04:20)

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3. Rising Hardline MAGA Opposition (04:55–07:54)

• Under Biden and Trump, both parties tweak H1B policies but avoid major reforms.
• Hackman describes a growing anti-H1B, sometimes racist, sentiment among the MAGA base:

“You had people using more and more strident, sort of racist, anti-Indian language... tweets from people basically saying...‘we can’t be hiring Indians... it’s going to smell like curry.’” — Michelle Hackman (05:54)

• As Trump returns to office, the debate ignites again.

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4. Tech Titans and the Policy "Tug of War" (06:39–07:54)

• High-profile businesspeople, notably Elon Musk, champion H1Bs:

“The reason I’m in America, along with so many critical people...is because of H1B. I will go to war on this issue, the likes of which you cannot possibly comprehend.” — Elon Musk (06:42)

• But with Musk’s exit from government, anti-H1B voices dominate, led by adviser Stephen Miller:

“Stephen Miller’s the one in charge...Suddenly...we get this announcement that they’re attaching a $100,000 fee to the H1B visa.” — Michelle Hackman (07:32)

• Trump frames this move as shutting down cheap foreign labor:

“So the whole idea is no more will these big tech companies...train foreign workers. Train Americans, stop bringing in people.” — Donald Trump (07:47, 08:01)

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5. Conflicting Presidential Messages Vs. Policy (08:06–12:31)

• Even as Trump’s administration imposes barriers, Trump himself voices support for high-skilled immigration.

“[The] tug of war seems to be won by the Stephen Miller side...but then we saw Trump say he thinks the U.S. needs to bring in more foreign workers… Help square this circle for me.” — Ested Herndon (08:06)

• Hackman explains Trump’s personal business background—using foreign talent at his hotels—makes him sympathetic to pro-H1B arguments, but his administration’s policies consistently reflect the hard-right stance.

• Telling quote:

“Trump himself was a businessman...my God, you know, when I was running my hotels, I couldn’t find Americans who wanted to take these jobs. So I had to hire people on visas.” — Michelle Hackman (10:48)

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6. What Happens Next? (12:31–13:43)

• The $100,000 fee is effectively an attempt to kill the H1B program without legislative action.
• Uncertainty for businesses:

“The big thing we’ll be watching for is are companies going to be willing to pay this gigantic fee?...Or are they just going to hire someone in Canada, or... open an office in Europe?” — Michelle Hackman (13:05)

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7. The Business Perspective: Vivek Wadhwa's Story (17:53–26:48)

Skill Shortages and American Innovation (18:28–19:55)

• Vivek Wadhwa recounts his own immigrant entrepreneur story, emphasizing immigrants’ role in American tech:

“From 1995 to 2005, a quarter of all the startups in Silicon Valley were founded by immigrants. A decade later, the trend had become national.” — Vivek Wadhwa (18:28)

The Problem With H1B—for Both Sides (20:07–21:07)

• Wadhwa agrees the H1B system is abused for cheap labor, and leaves immigrants trapped in underpaid roles:

“People...continue doing the same job...they’re stuck in limbo and making below market salaries. So the opponents of H1B visas are correct in the fact that the system is abused and...impacts U.S. salaries.” — Vivek Wadhwa (20:46)

Crushing Start-Ups With the H1B Fee (21:34–23:34)

• The new $100,000 fee would shut out startups:

“A startup works on fumes...$100,000 is unaffordable.” — Vivek Wadhwa (21:34)

• Severe barriers led Wadhwa to take his latest company to India, not the U.S.:

“I decided to move my company to India. So the United States lost over here.” — Vivek Wadhwa (23:32)

Loyalty & Regret (24:20–25:00)

• Emotional toll for immigrant entrepreneurs who want to build in America but can’t:

“My loyalty is to America. This is why it pains me that I had to build my technology in India...not dealing with all the nightmares and the stigma around H1B visas and then the delays, the $100,000.” — Vivek Wadhwa (24:20)

Solutions (25:27–26:09)

• Wadhwa: Free highly skilled immigrants from “limbo” by clearing green card backlogs and ending punitive fees.
• Warns of the danger to America’s innovation advantage:

“If we don’t bring the skills, engineers, and scientists to the United States, other countries will...and that breaks my heart. We have to save America from itself.” — Vivek Wadhwa (26:09)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Trump's ambivalence:

  “I know the H1B very well, and it's something that I frankly use and I shouldn't be allowed to use. We shouldn't have it, very, very bad for workers.” — Donald Trump (03:54)

• Racial undertones in anti-H1B sentiment:

  “You had people...saying, we can't be hiring Indians to work at the White House. It's going to smell like curry.” — Michelle Hackman (05:54)

• Elon Musk's advocacy:

  “I will go to war on this issue, the likes of which you cannot possibly comprehend.” — Elon Musk (06:42)

• Economic consequences:

  “Why on earth would I pay this? I'm just going to hire someone in Canada or I'm going to hire someone remotely.” — Michelle Hackman (13:12)

• Founder's heartbreak:

  “My loyalty is to America. This is why it pains me that I had to build my technology in India, even though I love India also.” — Vivek Wadhwa (24:20)

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Key Timestamps

• 00:00–01:00 — Framing Trump’s stance on illegal vs. legal immigration
• 02:21–04:53 — History and abuse of the H1B program, Trump administration’s first-term dynamics
• 05:38–07:54 — MAGA hardliners vs. business supporters; rise of anti-H1B sentiment
• 06:39–07:54 — Elon Musk’s defense and exit; Stephen Miller’s hardline dominance; $100k H1B fee
• 08:06–12:31 — Trump’s ambivalent views versus conflicting H1B policies
• 13:05–13:43 — Uncertain future for the H1B program: will businesses pay or move jobs away?
• 17:53–26:48 — Vivek Wadhwa’s personal story; H1B’s role in innovation; consequences of the fee; proposed solutions

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Tone and Takeaways

The episode exudes a tone of perplexity and frustration: perplexity at Trump’s mixed signals and the inherent contradictions in MAGA policy, and frustration from business and immigrant voices who feel America is sabotaging its own economic and innovative potential. The conversation is thoughtful, sometimes critical, and punctuated by the anxiety of entrepreneurs and pro-immigration advocates.

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For listeners:
This episode is a comprehensive guide to the political and business tensions over H1B visas in Trump’s America—from high-level policy debates to ground-level startup dilemmas and the risk of America ceding its innovation edge.

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End of summary.

Transcript

[Ested Herndon]

So President Trump has been pretty consistent about his feelings regarding illegal immigration to.

[Donald Trump]

The US all illegal entry will immediately be halted and we will begin the process of returning millions and millions of criminal aliens back to the places from which they came.

[Ested Herndon]

But when it comes to legal pathways to immigration, Trump's feelings are harder to gauge. The president has gone back and forth on H1B visas, the ones for high skilled workers in industries like tech and medicine, said that he has himself used these visas to hire people. And he recently pushed back against Laura Ingraham of Fox News, a MAGA loyalist, to defend these visas from right wing attacks.

[Donald Trump]

You also do have to bring in talent when we have plenty of talented people.

[Ested Herndon]

No you don't.

[Donald Trump]

No you don't.

[Ested Herndon]

So why is President Trump supporting a program that his MAGA base doesn't like? That's coming up next on Today Explained from Vox.

[Podcast Host/Announcer]

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[Michelle Hackman]

Wait, this is a Day TODAY Explained.

[Donald Trump]

This is.

[Podcast Advertiser]

You're listening to today explained.

[Donald Trump]

Today explained.

[Ested Herndon]

H1B visas have been a simmering issue on the right for years now. A couple months ago, we had the Wall Street Journal's Michelle Hackman on to explain. She said there's been a lot of legitimate abuses of the program.

[Michelle Hackman]

A lot of these visas actually go to companies there's there's sort of a whole business model that's sprung up around the H1B visa of sort of IT companies who staff almost their entire companies with primarily Indian men on H1B visas. And their model is that they do, you know, a little bit cheaper than a lot of companies in house IT offices. And so what's happened over the last 20 or 30 years is that a lot of companies have actually laid off their internal IT and hired these sort of IT external companies on H1B visas to come work for them instead.

[Ested Herndon]

This week, we got Michelle back on the line to walk us through the latest. She says this H1B visa mess all started back in 2016.

[Michelle Hackman]

Trump takes office. He obviously has all of this anti immigrant rhetoric. You know, Mexicans are rapists and refugees are all terrorists. And his movement sort of involved a lot of, we want to hire more Americans. We don't want jobs to go to foreigners. And so naturally, the H1B visa became sort of a target in that broader rhetoric.

[Ested Herndon]

Yeah, you could see how it could find itself in the Crosshairs of America First.

[Donald Trump]

I know the H1B very well, and it's something that I frankly use and I shouldn't be allowed to use. We shouldn't have it very, very bad for workers.

[Michelle Hackman]

But during the first Trump administration, you had a lot of competing voices. You know, Jared Kushner was in the White House, and he was sort of a more old school Republican, pro business voice.

[Ested Herndon]

We want to make sure we're bringing.

[Podcast Host/Announcer]

In people who will grow gdp, create jobs. We want to attract the best and brightest. We want to welcome people to this country.

[Michelle Hackman]

He was a bigger fan of the H1B visa program. And so the story of the first Trump administration was you definitely had the MAGA, right, hates the H1B. A lot of other big business owners, including, you know, big tech, love the H1B. And so you see this sort of, like, policy tug of war taking place where overall, like, nothing really happens. You know, maybe denials for the visa go up a little bit, but for most of the Trump administration, it's not like they made major changes to the program.

[Ested Herndon]

What happened during the Biden years, you.

[Michelle Hackman]

Saw sort of a marginal around the edges. Trump and Biden both trying to tweak policies, you know, to make it so that people who are paid better are getting H1B visas, as, as opposed to people who are being paid lower than Americans, for example. But I wouldn't say anything like particularly ideological happened with the H1B under Biden, but While Trump was out of office, this sort of tug of war that was happening in the first Trump administration went away. And the MAGA right was sort of allowed to, like, foment and cement its anti H1B feelings. My dear fellow Americans, I'm introducing a bill to completely eliminate the H1B visa program.

[Ested Herndon]

H1B visas are a total scam that are decimating a the American workforce.

[Podcast Host/Announcer]

But I seriously have not met a.

[Ested Herndon]

Single American that supports the H1B visa program. The only people that I see supporting it are, are Indians.

[Michelle Hackman]

You had people sort of using more and more strident, sort of racist, anti Indian language to the point where when Trump is sort of elected for the second time, you see tweets from people basically saying, oh, God, you know, we can't be hiring Indians to work at the White House. It's going to smell like curry.

[Ested Herndon]

So now that Trump is back in office, the visas have become again, another flashpoint because as we know, Trump has made immigration such a cornerstone of his politics, but that's almost exclusively focused on domestic immigration, deportations, and things that are happening what I would say not for a college educated or a highly skilled worker class. What's the state of H1B visas now?

[Michelle Hackman]

You had Elon Musk come into this administration.

[Elon Musk]

The reason I'm in America, along with so many critical people who built SpaceX, Tesla and hundreds of other companies that made America strong, is because of H1B. I will go to war on this issue, the likes of which you cannot.

[Michelle Hackman]

Possibly comprehend, and then really, really publicly.

[Elon Musk]

Exit as my scheduled time as a special government employee comes to an end. I would like to thank President Real Donald Trump for the opportunity to reduce wasteful spending.

[Michelle Hackman]

And it was after he exited that this tug of war that we'd been talking about of, you know, America first, anti immigrant voices on one side and sort of more pro business, you know, big hiring voices on the other side goes away. And suddenly Stephen Miller's the one in charge. Our view on H1BS is that you.

[Ested Herndon]

Cannot displace one or replace American workers.

[Michelle Hackman]

He's allowed to do what he wants. And totally out of nowhere, we get this announcement that they're attaching a $100,000 fee to the H1B visa.

[Donald Trump]

So the whole idea is no more will these big tech companies or other big companies train foreign workers.

[Michelle Hackman]

They explicitly say that that is meant to almost shut down the program, that they don't expect a lot of people to pay it.

[Donald Trump]

Train Americans, stop bringing in people to take our.

[Ested Herndon]

So the tug of war seems to be won by the Stephen Miller side of the Trump administration, who has effectively imposed the financial penalty in the explicit effort of shutting the program down. But then we saw Trump say he thinks the US Needs to bring in more foreign workers. So help square this circle for me. What does he mean? Has he been specific about the jobs that he wants to do that for and how does this interact with what he says? How should we see this versus the fee on the H1BS?

[Michelle Hackman]

So I think it's really interesting and it doesn't totally make sense. You know, Trump hires these people who have these strident anti immigrant views. They're zealous in their opinions, but from everything we've seen from Trump, he actually doesn't totally believe it himself.

[Ested Herndon]

Yeah, I also saw him say that he seemed to regret one of the raids that was one of the more notable ones over this summer. Can you tell me about his statement specific to the raid on on Korean workers and how do we think that fits in to his sentiments?

[Michelle Hackman]

This was a raid on a Hyundai plant that was making electric cars and those people were not on H1B visas. But I think the themes are similar. Right? That raid was planned by ice. Trump didn't know about it. They had planned to go in and actually hunt for Latino construction workers and in the end ended up arresting 175 Korean workers who, you know, not all, but typically were working in sort of higher skilled jobs.

[Donald Trump]

Making batteries are very complicated, it's not an easy thing, and very dangerous. A lot of explosions, a lot of problems.

[Michelle Hackman]

And he, I mean, basically like went out and disparaged the work of ICE was like that rage shouldn't have happened. I don't know why they did it.

[Donald Trump]

You can't just say a country's coming in, going to invest $10 billion to build a plant and gonna take people off an unemployment line who haven't worked in five years and they're gonna start making missiles. It doesn't work that way.

[Michelle Hackman]

And he actually arranged with the Korean government to let a lot of those people come back.

[Ested Herndon]

So should we see this as Trump may be seeing the H1B worker, maybe differently than he sees people who come here for asylum seeking purposes or other means of immigration? Or should we see this as Trump being deferential to the concerns of business leaders, often of whom have relied on this H1B group and have a direct access to him in the White House? Where do we think this shift in sentiment is coming from?

[Michelle Hackman]

So you have to remember his dad, that it's kind of both, because Trump himself was a businessman. He employed a lot of foreign workers himself.

[Ested Herndon]

Yeah.

[Michelle Hackman]

And so I think he, you know, it's not just like an influence campaign. I think he sees it from this perspective of those guys where he just doesn't. I think this is where he doesn't actually connect with the MAGA base, is that he's like, my God, you know, when I was running my hotels, I couldn't find Americans who wanted to take these jobs. And so I had to hire people on visas.

[Ested Herndon]

And it really seems as if, you know, the moments in which Trump is willing to go past his base or incur blowback to your point, flow from the experiences that he has had and he's comfortable by. And it does seem as if, whether it's as business owner or New Yorker or his relationship with these other CEOs, this is an issue that he might see much more differently than not just the folks in his administration, but also his electoral base.

[Michelle Hackman]

The thing is, Estad, it's not like his views have actually shaped the policy of his administration.

[Ested Herndon]

Say more about that.

[Michelle Hackman]

Yeah. So, I mean, Trump repeatedly makes these sort of pro foreign worker comments. He's basically pro H1B visa. He's probably making it easier for people to get green cards. That is not at all where his base is on this issue. They would like to. I mean, the H1B has become such a flashpoint that his base has gone beyond, you know, let's fix this IT problem. They want to shut down the H1B visa. They hate it. They want it to go away. He is not there at all. But his administration basically is moving ahead with this $100,000 fee, which is an attempt to, you know, doing what they can without Congress to try to shut off access to the H1B visa program.

[Ested Herndon]

So we have him making kind of sympathetic statements about folks who receive these visas at the same time making them less accessible by imposing the $100,000 fee. It seems as if it represents something we've seen across this administration where there are wildly different views on a macro level and also sometimes conflicting points of view, even when it comes to the principals in the room. Do we know where this goes next? Like, is there any sense that we could have about maybe the next flashpoint when it comes to this debate?

[Michelle Hackman]

The big thing that we're going to be watching for is are companies going to be willing to pay this gigantic fee?

[Ested Herndon]

Yeah.

[Michelle Hackman]

And if not, what are they going to do? You know, are they going to actually try to hire more Americans? Are they going to actually just outsource, source more jobs. You know, you hear a lot of companies saying why on earth would I pay this? I'm just going to hire someone in Canada or I'm going to hire someone remotely. I'm going to open an office in Europe and sort of work that way because this is crazy and it's not worth it.

[Ested Herndon]

Up next, we'll hear from an India born CEO who has some feelings about visas for foreign workers.

[Donald Trump]

Foreign.

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[Donald Trump]

And those people are going to teach our people how to make computer chips. And in a short period of time, our people are going to be doing great. And those people today explained.

[Ested Herndon]

The debate over high skill work inside this very anti immigration Trump White House gets at something awkward. Maybe what's America first or good for Trump politically isn't what's necessarily good for business in America. Vivek Wadhwa is a longtime tech entrepreneur and runs a medical diagnostics company here in the US his business relies on foreign workers, many of whom are on H1B visas. And Vivek says that the visa system is broken, just not in the way the Trump administration is saying.

[Vivek Wadhwa]

I came here as an immigrant. I came here as a skilled worker. My father was a diplomat, so I came on a diplomatic visa. And when I came here in 1980, it took 18 months for me to get a green card. And five years later I was a U.S. citizen. I became part of the American success story. I founded two companies, employed thousands of people at its peak when I became an academic several years later, I started researching US competitiveness and it came down to immigration. From 1995 to 2005, a quarter of all the startups in Silicon Valley were founded by immigrants. A decade later, the trend had become national that a quarter of all the startups all across America were founded by immigrants. And if you look at the top tech companies today, a bunch of Indians who are running them or who are behind the scenes developing all of the world changing Technologies.

[Ested Herndon]

Why do you think the H1B program has been so vital when it comes to entrepreneurship?

[Vivek Wadhwa]

Because this is the way skilled immigrants come to the United States, that they come here either as students or they come here as workers working for American companies. And that's the path to entering the United States. And then they file for a green card after they fall in love with America. And you know, the process is supposed to take 18 months, not, you know, 70 years.

[Ested Herndon]

You've recently been writing about your experience with H1BS and you write that it has been ripe for abuse. We heard some of that earlier in the show. What's been your experiences seeing kind of the system tested in those ways?

[Vivek Wadhwa]

Every government program is susceptible to corruption and misuse. They go to body shops, they go to companies looking for cheap labor. And when the H1B workers do come here and decide that they love America, they want to now become Americans, they're stuck in the same job. You see what happens. There's a nasty trick over here that if you're a computer programmer, when you file your H1B visa and you become a manager three or four years later, which is what's normal in the tech industry, it's a different job person became.

[Donald Trump]

From software developer to IT manager.

[Vivek Wadhwa]

That is a drastic change.

[Donald Trump]

New salary, new department, new job duties.

[Vivek Wadhwa]

Sounds amazing, right? Wrong. So therefore, people start continue doing the same job they did when they started the H1B process, which means that they're stuck in limbo and they're also making below market salaries. So the opponents of H1B visas are correct in the fact that the system is abused and that it does impact U.S. salaries.

[Ested Herndon]

You know, one of the things we just learned about was kind of how Trump has sent out mixed signals when it comes to H1B visas. A lot of parts of his administration have talked against the visas, while he has said in other instances that he finds them to be somewhat effective. Now they've announced a hundred thousand dollar fee on every H1B visa application. So from your perspective as someone who has leaned on this, as an entrepreneur, what would that fee mean for you?

[Vivek Wadhwa]

A startup works on fumes, you don't have that kind of money. The Googles and the Microsofts and the Oracles, they've got big money. So $100,000 is nothing to them. But to the companies that really need the deep talent to be able to do world changing innovations, we're on tight budgets. $100,000 is unaffordable.

[Ested Herndon]

So if I hear you correctly, you're saying the people who are most affected by this proposed fee are the ones in your sphere. Maybe not those big companies or even, but the ones who are reliant on folks who use these visas. But that $100,000 would be crippling to.

[Vivek Wadhwa]

Yes, it basically shuts off the system. About two years ago, I was looking to start my medical diagnostics company that's going to now be able to detect diseases, and I'll bring it to the United States when the time is right. But the skills I needed for that were electrical engineers, mechanical engineers, experts in plasma physics, thermodynamics. I needed lab technicians, a lot of skills that you can't readily find in the United States. I needed top notch mathematicians who understood biology. All right, There are very few of those in the United States. And if they exist, they're outside Silicon Valley. So at first I was looking to raise money over here, build my company over here, and then I realized I simply can't find. I looked. I mean, it's not that I didn't, you know, try. I looked for talent. So I started looking on LinkedIn for experts across the globe. And there were quite a few of them in India because they still have universities that teach these things. So I was looking to hire them and then I said, oh my God, H1B. I need to bring them on H1B visas. And I looked at the numbers, the chances of being able to. It's literally a lottery. Yeah. And then all the hassles, the fact that you're bringing people in, if they fall in love with America, they can't stay. It was a losing battle. I mean, I knew enough about the system that I said, forget it. I decided to move my company to India. So the United States lost over here.

[Ested Herndon]

This strikes me that you were kind of coming up against this two years ago, even before Donald Trump had gotten back into office and then kind of had taken aim at this program more recently, it seems to me as if you would have known that $100,000 number that could have made that decision a lot easier for you earlier. Right.

[Vivek Wadhwa]

I wouldn't have wasted four months trying to set up a company in Silicon Valley, having to deal with the venture capitalists over here. I mean, forget it. I mean, it would have been a no brainer.

[Ested Herndon]

You know, you mentioned kind of about being a proud American, you mentioned about what this country has given you. Is there any kind of, I don't know, like a feeling or that when it comes time to build this company here, that you're going back to India? Is there anything you owe the United States to build the company here?

[Vivek Wadhwa]

Absolutely. I owe the United States everything. I wouldn't be where I am. I wouldn't be able to do these innovations. I wouldn't have had the opportunities if it wasn't for America. This is my country. I consider myself 100% American, and my loyalty is to America. This is why it pains me that I had to build my technology in India, even though I love India also. I wanted to build my technology here, and I could have raised the money I needed to build the technology here, but not dealing with all the nightmares and the stigma around H1B visas and then the delays, the $100,000. Because at the end of the day, even If I raise $20 million from Silicon Valley, I'm still a startup. I can't afford $100,000 fees on every employee I hire.

[Ested Herndon]

A question I have for you is, you know, what do you think the solution is? I mean, we're coming at a point now where H1Bs have been kind of politicized for several years. There's been so much back and forth about what the right level should be. You get back and forth messages from the White House itself. From your perspective of someone who has experienced kind of the system firsthand, what would be the biggest thing that the country could do to make your life easier?

[Vivek Wadhwa]

Well, number one, free the people who are trapped in immigration limbo. There are about 1 million people who's here legally. I mean, they're working for American companies, paying taxes. They can get a green card immediately. All right? You'd have half a million people buying houses, okay? That would boost the American economy more than his tariffs can, more than anything else can, and then get rid of this stupidity, $100,000 fees and so on. No.

[Ested Herndon]

Is some of what we're kind of subtly talking about here a kind of American cultural thing, too, that we think that, like, you know, because of, maybe because of our education system or because of maybe something of the American worker are just not fit for the emergence of jobs that we have right now.

[Vivek Wadhwa]

I've written books about this, about the exclusion of minorities, the exclusion of women. I mean, there are a lot of issues here, okay? And the fact that Americans aren't studying the hard sciences anymore, they aren't studying mathematics anymore. So if we don't bring the skills, engineers and scientists to the United States, other countries will, or countries like India will have innovation systems that rival Silicon Valley. And that breaks my heart. We have to save America from itself.

[Ested Herndon]

That was tech entrepreneur Vivek Wadhwa. This episode was produced by Peter Balad Rosen and Miles Bryant. Edited by Miranda Kennedy Fact Checked by Hadi Mwagdi and Laura Bullard and our engineers are Patrick Boyd and Adrian Lilly. The rest of the team includes Avishai Artsy, Danielle Hewitt, Kelly Wezinger, Arianna Ospadu, Noel King, Sean Ramaswam, Aminah Al Saadi and Jolie Meyers. We use music by Breakmaster Cylinder. You know you can listen to the podcast ad free by becoming a member of Vox and we're running a sale so you can think of this as your early Black Friday gift. I'm Ested Herndon. It's today explained.

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