Sen. Bernie Sanders says Elon Musk “is wrong” when it comes to his support of the H-1B visa program, which allows high-skilled foreigners to legally work in the United States.
Musk and fellow Trump adviser Vivek Ramaswamy are “right” that the U.S. needs a skilled and educated workforce, Sanders said in a statement, but the visa program needs “major reforms.”
“The answer is to hire qualified American workers first and to make certain that we have an education system that produces the kind of workforce that our country needs for the jobs of the future,” Sanders (I-Vt.), soon-to-be ranking member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, said. “We are in desperate need of more doctors, nurses, dentists, teachers, electricians, plumbers, and a host of other professions.”
Debate over the visa program has rankled allies of Trump in recent days. Tech entrepreneurs have voiced support for the program, as has Trump himself, while other nationalist conservatives have questioned the continued need to welcome foreign workers into the country.
Sanders, a two-time presidential candidate, has picked his spots with Musk and Trump since the president-elect’s victory for a second term. The Vermont progressive wrote in early December that Musk and his so-called Department of Government Efficiency — which the billionaire is co-chairing with Ramaswamy — was correct in striving to root out waste, fraud and abuse within the country’s defense spending.
