Not only have America’s priorities shifted as a nation – as evidenced by President-elect Donald Trump winning the popular vote on a largely conservative populist set of priorities – but divisions are emerging between conservatives who consider themselves part of “MAGA” (Make America Great Again) and those who do not.
The 2024 election was a powerful nation-wide referendum on the decades-long failed globalist experiment, with voters strongly aligning with President Trump’s populist, America First platform.
A post-election survey of over 2,000 voters from the Manhattan Institute outlines just how strongly the American people rejected the globalist Harris-Walz agenda and embraced Trump’s America First priorities on everything from energy independence to the border.
Indeed, the survey found Americans broadly support Trump’s positions across a multitude of issues. Eighty-one percent of Americans support Trump’s plan to reduce inflation and make America affordable again, 80 percent support Trump’s plan to rebuild cities and make them safer, 73 percent support Trump’s plan to stop migrant crime, cartels, and gangs and lock up violent offenders, and 70 percent support making America a dominant energy producer.
Another 68 percent of Americans support keeping men out of women’s sports, 65 percent support sealing the border and ending illegal immigration, and 54 percent support the largest deportation of illegal immigrants in history. America is very, very much on board with Trump’s core ideology – putting the American people first.
While Trump is already gearing up to fulfill his promises on many of these issues, a skirmish has emerged between MAGA-conservatives and more business-first members of the right.
This is evidenced in the battle over H-1B visas for “skilled workers”, which recently pitted conservatives intent on protecting American workers against the nation’s H-1B Visa program which provides temporary employment to foreign workers.
The spat reached a temporary ceasefire when Trump’s pick for government efficiency lead Elon Musk admitted in a post on X that the H-1B visa program “is broken and needs major reform.”
Americans agree with that sentiment. The Manhattan Institute survey found by well over a two-to-one-margin (55 percent to 21 percent) Americans endorse requiring visa applicants to disclose their views on Hamas and ISIS, signaling a desire to properly vet and reform the visa program.
However, the continued battle over whether immigration is a net benefit or burden for the United States highlights the growing tension between MAGA-conservatives and the business-first wing of the Republican Party.
There is broad consensus among conservatives – and the nation at large – that illegal immigration is a growing burden that must be addressed, and support for securing the border is at a peak.
However, there is still much to debate over “legal” immigration. For six decades, Congress has largely operated under a system that allowed American businesses to benefit from cheap foreign labor after the passage of the 1965 Immigration Act. The middle-class has largely paid the price while businesses have profited.
Cheap foreign labor, even if it is “highly skilled” directly competes with job-seeking Americans. According to the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), the share of working-age men born in the U.S. who were in the labor force was lower in 2000 than in 1960 and in all states except for one, that number has fallen further in the last two decades. In other words, Americans are being displaced in the workforce.
CIS reports that U.S.-born men have been taken out of the labor force in nearly every state. In 1960, forty-four out of fifty states had healthy labor participation rates above 85%, but that number fell to only five states in 2023. The number of U.S.-born men without jobs increased by 13.8 million individuals from 1960 to 2023, and the number of immigrant men in the labor force rose by nearly the same number, 13.7 million.
We have a growing population of Americans who have been displaced due to cheap foreign labor, causing a host of ramifications social scientists are just beginning to unpack.
What we are witnessing is a battle between prioritizing the needs of American workers and prioritizing the needs of American businesses.
Conservative populists take a pro-worker angle and point out that allowing even “skilled” foreign labor into the country at the current level displaces American workers. Businesses argue that to remain globally competitive they need to be able to rely on skilled foreign labor.
At the end of the day, it is indisputable that programs like the H-1B visa program displace American workers – if they could not secure foreign labor, companies would have to do everything they could to train and adequately compensate Americans to fill the gap. This could take shape in higher business investment in education and vocational training programs to create the proper talent pool.
At minimum, Americans can agree to review and reform the H-1B program and ensure these programs are not being exploited.
However, MAGA-conservatives are dedicated to scaling back the reach of foreign-labor and forcing businesses to invest in American workers. This goal has a longer timeframe to profitability for businesses, as it requires investment in education and training programs as well as competitive compensation packages.
However, the long-term benefit is a more educated and highly employed American workforce. It is hard to argue against the societal benefits that could be reaped from increasing American employment and job stability, but businesses will likely fight against this since they are the ones footing the bill after getting a “free ride” with cheap labor for decades.
A cessation to the assault on our southern border is necessary, and after four years of the Biden Administration’s disastrous Open Borders experiment, the public is largely unified behind securing the border and deporting illegals.
The “skilled labor” debate is more nuanced and requires balancing the immediate operating costs of American businesses with investment in the long-term economic health of our society and workforce.
By reducing unnecessary regulatory costs on businesses, Congress may be able to offset some of the costs to businesses as they are weaned off cheap foreign labor.
Immigration policy is an ever-evolving landscape, and its goals should be aligned with those of the American people first and foremost. There may come a time where increasing the number of foreign-workers is both necessary and beneficial, but we have lived under a cheap-foreign labor experiment for sixty years, and it is time to review the repercussions and design an America First approach to immigration that does not leave segments of our population behind.
Bill Wilson is the former president of Americans for Limited Government.