New York | US President Donald Trump appeared to defend the H-1B visa programme, saying America has to bring in talent from around the world as it does not have “certain talents” in the country.
“I agree but you also do have to bring in talent,” Trump said, responding to a question in an interview with Laura Ingraham on Fox News on whether the H-1B visa issue will not be a big priority for his administration and if one wants to raise wages for American workers, the country cannot be flooded with hundreds of thousands of foreign workers.
When Ingraham noted that “we have plenty of talent”, Trump said, “No, you don’t, no you don’t. You don’t have certain talents. And people have to learn.” “You can’t take people off an unemployment line, and say, ‘I’m going to put you into a factory, we’re going to make missiles’,” Trump added.
“In Georgia, they raided because they wanted illegal immigrants. They had people from South Korea that made batteries all their lives. You know, making batteries (is) very complicated. It’s not an easy thing, and very dangerous. A lot of explosions, lot of problems,” he said.
“They had, like 500-600 people, early stages to make batteries and to teach people how to do it. Well, they wanted them to get out of the country. You’re going to need that…I mean, I know you and I disagree on this.
“You can’t just say a country is coming in, going to invest USD 10 billion to build a plant and going to take people off an unemployment line who haven’t worked in five years, and they’re going to start making missiles. It doesn’t work that way,” the president said.
