‘Maga civil war’ breaks out in Trump camp over immigration policy

A unique civil war has broken out among the supporters of US President-elect Donald Trump over immigration issues. The bitter-in-fighting is taking place between tech billionaire Elon Musk and Donald Trump’s hardline Make America Great Again (Maga) base. The animosities between the two wings emerged after Trump chose an Indian-born entrepreneur to be his adviser on artificial intelligence.

The row has pitted Musk and biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy against the Maga supporters, especially far-right political activist Laura Loomer and Matt Gaetz, the former Congress member and abortive nominee for attorney general. The clash is significant since immigration was the key issue in the 2024 US Presidential elections.

Musk went on the offensive after Loomer attacked the choice of Sriram Krishnan, a Silicon Valley venture capitalist, as the upcoming administration’s AI adviser, calling his appointment “deeply disturbing’. Loomer was widely credited for her role in persuading Trump to propagate false rumours about Haitian immigrants eating pets in the state of Ohio.

The debate over visas takes centre stage

Loomer slammed Krishnan on social media for supporting the extension of visas and green cards for skilled workers. Loomer emphasised that Krishnan’s idea was in “direct opposition” to Trump’s agenda over immigration. Her provocative remarks garnered criticism from Musk Trump’s most influential supporter and himself an immigrant from South Africa.

“There is a permanent shortage of excellent engineering talent. It is the fundamental limiting factor in Silicon Valley,” Musk posted on X, the social media platform he owns, on Christmas Day. “It comes down to this: do you want America to WIN or do you want America to LOSE? If you force the world’s best talent to play for the other side, America will LOSE. End of story,” he wrote in a later post.

Musk’s stance over the matter was supported by Ramaswamy his partner in heading the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). In a lengthy post, the erstwhile Republican presidential hopeful and the son of immigrants from India – argued that the US was doomed to decline without high-skilled foreign workers and suggested American culture had become geared towards “mediocrity”.

“The reason top tech companies often hire foreign-born & first-generation engineers over ‘native’ Americans isn’t because of an innate American IQ deficit,” he wrote. “A key part of it comes down to the c-word: culture. Our American culture has venerated mediocrity over excellence for way too long. That doesn’t start in college, it starts YOUNG.”

“A culture that celebrates the prom queen over the math olympiad champ, or the jock over the valedictorian, will not produce the best engineers. ‘Normalcy’ doesn’t cut it in a hyper-competitive global market for technical talent. And if we pretend like it does, we’ll have our asses handed to us by China,” he added.

Both Musk and Ramaswamy’s remarks faced major backlash from Maga supporters who went on to present racist arguments. “@VivekGRamaswamy knows that the Great Replacement is real,” Loomer said in response to Ramaswamy’s post.

“It’s not racist against Indians to want the original MAGA policies I voted for. I voted for a reduction in H1B visas. Not an extension. The tech billionaires don’t get to just walk inside Mar-a-Lago and stroke their massive chequebooks and rewrite our immigration policy so they can have unlimited slave labourers from India and China who never assimilate. You don’t even know what MAGA immigration policy is,” she added.

Ramswamy’s assertion was also criticised by Brenden Dilley, a pro-Trump podcaster. “I always love when these tech bros flat out tell you that they have zero understanding of American culture and then have the gall to tell you that YOU are the problem with America,” he averred.

Amid the chaos, former US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley, whose parents were also Indian immigrants, surprisingly supported the Maga arguments. “There is nothing wrong with American workers or American culture. All you have to do is look at the border and see how many want what we have. We should be investing and prioritizing in Americans, not foreign workers,” she wrote.

Where does Trump stand?

It is pertinent to note that during his first stint as the President, Trump restricted access to the H-1B visas, arguing they were open to abuse. Even during his 2024 presidential campaign, he pushed an aggressive anti-immigration rhetoric.

However, he maintained that he is open to the legal immigration of educated workers, saying he wanted to grant permanent residence status to foreign nationals who graduate from universities in the US. “If you graduate or you get a doctorate degree from a college, you should be able to stay in this country,” he told the All In podcast last June.

Hence many believe that the issue of immigration highlights the ideological difference between Maga and new Trump supporters.

With inputs from agencies.