H-1B: Backlash Erupts After Trump Softens Stance on Visa

In a surprising political twist, Trump’s H-1B Visa Remarks made during a Fox News interview this week have stirred a storm within the former president’s own base. Speaking with host Laura Ingraham on Tuesday, Donald Trump departed from his long-standing hardline immigration messaging, suggesting that the United States must bring in more high-skilled foreign workers to remain competitive in critical industries.

Trump argued that the country is facing an urgent shortfall of specialized talent, particularly in manufacturing, defence technology, and advanced engineering.

“I agree, but you also have to bring this talent,” he said when asked if H-1B visa reform remained a priority. While affirming his desire to protect American wages, he insisted that some sectors simply cannot function without imported expertise.

When Ingraham suggested that American talent was sufficient and that companies did not need to “flood industries” with foreign labour, Trump pushed back firmly.
“There are certain skills you don’t have, and people have to learn them,” he said. “You can’t take people off the unemployment line and say, ‘I’m going to put you into a factory where we’re going to make missiles.’”

The former president doubled down, arguing that large-scale industrial investments require workers with specialised, technical proficiency—not untrained or long-term unemployed Americans.
“You can’t just say a country is coming in, going to invest $10 billion to build a plant, and take people off the unemployment line who haven’t worked in five years, and they’re going to start making missiles. It doesn’t work that way,” he stated.

These unexpected Trump H-1B Visa Remarks arrive shortly after his administration imposed a steep $100,000 fee on new H-1B applications in September—a move initially celebrated by supporters who believed it would curb reliance on foreign talent.

H-1B: MAGA Base Erupts in Anger Online

Trump’s comments were met with swift and vocal pushback across conservative social media circles. Many of his supporters accused him of abandoning American workers and betraying the very voters who propelled him to prominence.

One disgruntled supporter wrote:
“Maybe POTUS doesn’t know we have engineers and techies who are on that unemployment line, or far under employed because the companies who hire H1Bs don’t advertise to Americans. Ignorance is not becoming in a president.”

Another criticized Trump’s stance as a fundamental breach of trust:
“When a president loses faith in his own people, he forfeits the nation’s soul. To distrust your citizens while flooding the country with 600,000 students from a rival power isn’t leadership—it’s betrayal.”

Many echoed the sentiment that American graduates and displaced tech workers are being overlooked:
“Horrific, insulting answer to the hundreds of thousands of displaced workers in tech and beyond. Meanwhile new grads sit in the unemployment line so someone from mostly one other country can take their place.”

Some expressed deep disillusionment:
“I don’t know who you are lady, but you just absolutely permanently destroyed what remained of the positive image that I, and many others, had of Trump. Thanks for revealing who he really is.”

Another commenter was even more direct:
“Thanks for doing your job. It’s too bad POTUS turned his back on the American people and sold us out to foreigners and big corporations.”