Donald Trump appeared to indicate a major change in his immigration platform at Thursday’s Fox News Republican debate by implying he wants to expand America’s H-1B visa program. But his campaign released a statement shortly after the event saying that wasn’t true.
Claiming that the question posed to Trump by moderator Megyn Kelly related to high-skill immigration solely, the statement states, “The H-1B program is neither high-skilled nor immigration: these are temporary foreign workers, imported from abroad, for the explicit purpose of substituting for American workers at lower pay.”
Trump, in the statement, goes on to declare, “I remain totally committed to eliminating rampant, widespread H-1B abuse and ending outrageous practices such as those that occurred at Disney in Florida when Americans were forced to train their foreign replacements. I will end forever the use of the H-1B as a cheap labor program, and institute an absolute requirement to hire American workers first for every visa and immigration program. No exceptions.”
During the debate, the Republican front-runner appeared to evince a different tune on the subject. While H-1B — a program designed to grant non-immigrant visas to high-skilled foreign workers — is never directly named in the initial questioning, Kelly did ask whether he was changing his position on visas for high-skilled migrants.
In response, Trump said, “We need highly skilled people in this country… I’m softening my position.” (Trump Inexplicably Changes Key Immigration Position)