US President Donald Trump defended the H-1B visa programme, saying the country needs foreign talent for certain industries.
In an interview with Fox News' Laura Ingraham on Tuesday (local time), Trump was asked if his administration planned to deprioritise H-1B visas. He replied, "You do have to bring in talent."
When Ingraham countered, "We have plenty of talent," Trump responded, "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," he added.
Trump's statement comes even as he launched a crackdown on H-1B visas in September through a proclamation, imposing a hefty application fee of $100,000.
Last week, the US Department of Labor (DOL) launched at least 175 investigations into potential abuses within the H-1B visa programme, as part of a broader effort by the Trump administration to crack down on the foreign worker visa system.
The initiative, dubbed 'Project Firewall', was launched in September to target companies allegedly exploiting the visa system, which allows US firms to hire foreign workers in speciality occupations such as information technology, engineering, and healthcare.
"The Department of Labor is using every resource at our disposal to put a stop to H-1B abuse and protect American jobs," the DOL Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer said in a post on X.
