‘I’m Gonna Welcome These People!’ Trump Rebukes Right-Wing Critics of His Immigration Policy
President Donald Trump doubled down Wednesday on his support for bringing in high-skilled workers from foreign countries on H-1B visas, something many in his MAGA base oppose.
Trump addressed the U.S.-Saudi Investment Forum following his highly controversial meeting with and state dinner for Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on Tuesday.
Trump told the crowd, “You’re building plants to make computers and to make telephones, to make a lot of different things, missiles. But you’re building plants that make things that are very, very detailed, and you have to have great knowledge. And you’re coming here, and you find if we don’t have people that did that before, we are allowing you, and I may take a little heat—I always take a little heat from my people, the people that love me and the people that I love.” He added:
They happen to be toward the right of center, toward the right. Sometimes they’re way right. If you have to bring people to get those plants opened, we want you to do that, and we want those people to teach our people how to make computer chips and how to make other things. You can’t come in, and I’m explaining, you can’t come in, open up a massive computer chip factory for billions and billions of dollars like is being done in Arizona, and think you’re going to hire people off an unemployment line to run it.
They’re going to have to bring thousands of people with them, and I’m going to welcome those people. I love my conservative friends. I love MAGA, but this is MAGA. 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 can go home where they probably always want to be. You know, when people are born someplace, they tend to want to go, and we have the greatest country in the world, but they want to go.
But they’re going to do—we had one case in Georgia where a battery factory—batteries are very dangerous to make. They’re complex, much more complex than people understand. And they brought in—they spent a billion dollars to build a factory, and they were told to get out. And I said, “Stop it. Don’t be stupid.” And we worked it out. And now they’re teaching our people how to do it. But they’re going to have to spend—Jensen, I don’t think you can open up a big plant with your friend from Taiwan, where we’re going to have 40 or 50 percent of the computer chip business at a very—I don’t think you can do that with people that don’t even know what a chip looks like. Do you agree with that?
So somehow, you know, the people that are against this are really, really smart. They’re unbelievable patriots, but they just don’t understand our people have to be taught. This is something they’ve never done. And we’re not going to be successful if we don’t allow people that invest billions of dollars in plant and equipment to bring a lot of their people from their country to get that plant open, operating, and working. I’m sorry.
Trump sparked a wave of anger on the right last week when he told Fox News host Laura Ingraham that the U.S. did not have enough “talented” workers to meet its needs. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) pounced on the comments and accused Trump of not acting for “America First.” Close Trump allies, like Steve Bannon, have long pushed for the government to limit visas to foreign workers, arguing that corporations exploit cheaper labor from abroad at the expense of paying American workers a competitive salary.
Watch the clip above via Fox News.
