Posted on 03/04/2016 8:32:02 AM PST by ConservingFreedom
Short version: at last night’s debate the topic of H-1B visas* came up. Last night Megyn Kelly asked Donald Trump at the debate how he felt about temporary work visas now. Trump said that he loved them to death, and was softening the position found on his website. Somewhere out in the political wilderness, Senator Jeff Sessions (an H-1B visa restrictionist who is endorsing Trump solely because of Trump’s position on immigration, supposedly) immediately suffered a nosebleed from the psychic shock of this sudden, yet inevitable betrayal**. The Trump campaign had to go out and send around an email saying, No, really, forget that Trump said that. Please, please, please, forget that Trump said that. Also: Trump can’t tell the difference between a H-1B and a H-2B visa.
For the longer story? Well, let’s go to the transcripts.
KELLY: Mr. Trump, your campaign website to this day argues that more visas for highly skilled workers would, quote, “decimate American workers”. However, at the CNBC debate, you spoke enthusiastically in favor of these visas. So, which is it?
TRUMP: I’m changing. I’m changing. We need highly skilled people in this country, and if we can’t do it, we’ll get them in. But, and we do need in Silicon Valley, we absolutely have to have.
So, we do need highly skilled, and one of the biggest problems we have is people go to the best colleges. They’ll go to Harvard, they’ll go to Stanford, they’ll go to Wharton, as soon as they’re finished they’ll get shoved out. They want to stay in this country. They want to stay here desperately, they’re not able to stay here. For that purpose, we absolutely have to be able to keep the brain power in this country.
KELLY: So you abandoning the position on your website…
TRUMP: … I’m changing it, and I’m softening the position because we have to have talented people in this country.
If you’re taking a strong stance on ending or at least cutting back the H-1B program – like, say, Mark Krikorian of National Review, or Michelle Malkin – this position is appalling. I want to be really careful right now, because I am of course a pro-immigration squish; but if I understand Mark Krikorian’s position here he feels that Trump is simply talking tough about immigration to please his own base, and is using the H-1B issue to signal to hypothetical*** general election donors that Trump’s not actually really into all this immigration hawk stuff. Which last part I’ll agree with, for reasons that I’ll get into later.
At any rate, Trump’s long-suffering official He Didn’t Mean It Squad had to play cleanup again:
Megyn Kelly asked about highly-skilled immigration. The H-1B program is neither high-skilled nor immigration…
– And we’ll stop there because when there are two flat-out lies in the first two sentences of your press release, there’s no point to keep going, is there? Look at the transcript again. Megyn Kelly didn’t ask about immigration. She asked about work visas. As for the high-skilled part – look, H-1B visas are for people with college degrees. One of the major criticisms of the H-1B program is that it supposedly takes away STEM jobs from Americans with equivalent skills.
Which means that the aforementioned press release shows that neither Donald Trump nor his staff knows the difference between a H-1B visa and a H-2B visa. You see, H-2B visas are for low-skill temporary work. And Donald Trump knows this, certainly, because he still uses them all the time for his hotels. Including, interestingly, in Florida. And why does Trump use H-2B visas? Well, let’s go to the transcript yet again, because Marco Rubio was able to explain the entire thing succinctly:
RUBIO: … And, here’s why he does it this way, let me explain why he (INAUDIBLE) H2-B…
TRUMP: … Wrong…
RUBIO: … Because when you bring them in this way, when you bring someone in on one of these visas they can’t go work for anybody else. They either work for you or they have to go back home. You basically have them captive, so you don’t have to worry about competing for higher wages with another hotel down the street. And, that’s why you bring workers from abroad.
Note that Marco Rubio knows exactly what a H-2B visa is. And why Donald Trump uses them (because H-1Bs and H-2Bs give companies a lot of leverage over the foreigners that they’ve hired). And this is part and parcel of the reason why some immigration hawks are a little steamed right now at Trump. Nobody likes being flat-out lied to, particularly when it’s being done in this contemptuous a fashion.
And if Trump is lying about this, it’s for certain that he’s lying about building a wall. Which you hopefully already knew, anyway. If you didn’t, well… he’s not building a wall.
Moe Lane
*For those who are not familiar with them – lucky, lucky you – H-1B visas are work visas issued to non-immigrants in specific occupations. These visas are tied to a specific job and employer, and their existence and use are a… definite part of our current robust and vigorous debate over immigration policy.
**Not really. I’m sure that he felt suddenly sick and confused, though.
***A bit more hypothetical now than before the debate, might I add. And the Trump campaign agrees with me, given how quickly they leaped to smother the fire with their own bodies.
Oh goody, another TedState hit piece.
So much flame bait so little time, yawn....
As usual the TDS CruZaders™ are overplaying their hand.
Red State in the morning”: Sailor take warning! ;-)
There's no "cleaning up" after The Mouth That Roared without misleading.
You really DON'T care about his real positions, do you? You are simply a cult follower. He's playing the rubes.
Fits in perfectly with the clips Megyn played last night. Changing his positions by the hour. He either has no positions, or is simply too ignorant to understand the subject.
Maybe Trump’s the wrong person for president (I think he’s right).
But he’s got people talking about H1B, H2B, walls, amnesty, etc. He’s already accomplished more than most “republicans”. I’d bet they’d all be running as far from this discussion as possible since “we don’t want to offend Hispanics and lose votes”. And the next congress could try to sneak amnesty through - but now more voters are going to pay very close attention to the legislation.
The reality is always more complicated than zealots want to believe, because simple sound-bites are so much more satisfying emotionally. So Trump issues a statement that, if you read it quickly, sounds like he's ending the H-1B visa program. But he's really not.
If you read his immigration policy paper that Trump published months ago you would see that he was not against all H1B visas. He wants to raise the H1B salary scale so companies will not be able to save money by hiring foreigner workers to do low level stuff but will still be able to hire the very smart people they claim to need at wages that reflect their skill level.
That's why I support Cruz and Trump and don't get involved is childish flame throwing crap.
Face it, as of now it looks like Trump is it, it's either him, Hillary, or whatever GOPe establishment type they can shove down our throats.
Carry on with these useless threads, they only serve to accomplish what the DC crooks want...maybe that's what some poster are here to promote as well.
He is.
But he’s got people talking about H1B, H2B, walls, amnesty, etc.
I do agree with that; his pot-stirring has been a public service.
he’s softening the changing one....anybody knows that/:)
Trump is ‘evolving’.
I bet Sessions regrets his endorsement now.
It ain't over till it's over, so I'll keep backing the constitutional conservative over the reality TV star.
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