Donald Trump Says Bringing in Foreign Workers Is ‘MAGA’

President Donald Trump said Wednesday that companies building major U.S. chip plants will need to bring in thousands of skilled foreign workers, calling the influx essential to keeping projects running.

Speaking at the U.S.-Saudi Arabia Investment Forum in Washington, D.C., the president said welcoming those workers on H1-B visas is “MAGA,” arguing they fill jobs that cannot be sourced from “the unemployment line.”

Trump acknowledged to the crowd that this stance “makes his poll numbers go down” with members of his far-right Make America Great Again base, while saying his “poll numbers went up with smart people.”

“They just don’t understand,” Trump said. “People have to be taught this is something they’ve never done. But we’re not going to be successful if we don’t allow people that invest billions of dollars in plants and equipment to bring a lot of their people from their country to get that plant open, operating and working. I’m sorry.”

{snip}

Trump has come under fire over the past week after telling Fox News host Laura Ingraham that foreign workers were needed because the United States does not have enough skilled workers. The comments enraged those on the right who believe all immigration, legal and illegal, should be cut off under the idea that immigrants are keeping Americans out of work.

{snip}

Using a computer chip manufacturing plant in Arizona as one example, Trump said it was not possible to build such an operation without foreign investment and personnel.

“I’m going to welcome those people,” Trump said. “I love my conservative friends, I love MAGA. This is MAGA. 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.”

Trump also referred to the case in Georgia, where dozens of South Korean workers were detained by federal agents while they were working at a Hyundai plant, saying he had not wanted those workers to be deported.

{snip}