Peter Navarro on H-1B Visa Program: It's a Lottery and the American Worker Never Wins That Lottery
President Trump will sign the ‘buy American, hire American’ executive order Tuesday, which in part targets the H-1B visa program. The executive order would revamp the program and address alleged abuses.
“It’s a lottery now and the American worker never wins that lottery," said White House National Trade Council Director Peter Navarro. "It’s turned into a game and if you want to get a game that wins for American workers you’ve got to change the rules and that’s what the ‘hire American’ part of this executive order today does.”
In an interview with the FOX Business Network’s Stuart Varney, Navarro responded to allegations of fraud in the visa program that admits foreign workers. “Well, fraud I think is the wrong word," he said. "I think abuse and gaming is the problem. What you have is, you have firms basically that load up on the number of people that participate in that lottery in a way which advantages those people at the expense of the American worker.”
Navarro says Trump's executive order has ‘buy American’ in its title because “it’s going to mean good jobs for American workers when taxpayer money is spent on government procurement, it’s going to be made in America, buy America, hire America.”
When Varney asked if Congress should work through their summer recess until they achieve something on taxes and Obamacare, Navarro reacted, “We need a tax bill that’s consistent with President Trump’s promises and we need that as soon as possible.”