While you’ve been enjoying your Christmas holiday, there’s been a civil war raging inside MAGA Land. It’s worth paying attention to because it has ramifications for the Trump administration—and the future of the country.
On one level the battle is about the role of immigration—legal and illegal. The focus has specifically been on a program that offers so-called H-1B visas, which proponents, including Elon Musk, insist are important for helping build the American economy, and detractors say take away jobs from U.S. citizens. (Read my colleague Joe Nocera on that.)
But the most high-stakes aspect of this fight doesn’t have to do with the minutiae of U.S. immigration policy, but instead involves national identity—and whether an influx of non-white non-Europeans should be allowed to change the face of America.
All of this came into focus on December 23, when Sriram Krishnan was nominated by president-elect Donald Trump as senior policy adviser for artificial intelligence. Given his distinguished background as a Silicon Valley entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and former executive at companies like Microsoft, Twitter, and Meta, he seems like a perfect fit for the role.
But not everyone thought so. What provoked the ire of some America First proponents is Krishnan’s outspoken support for removing country-specific caps on green cards, which he says would “unlock” the potential of skilled immigration. The present system means no country can receive more than seven percent of the total estimated 140,000 employment-based green cards per year—meaning people from large countries such as India and China face long backlogs compared to those from smaller nations.
Never mind that Krishnan would have no power over immigration policy in his AI advisory role under Trump. It was his Indian origin that seemed to be the true problem for his online haters.
Leading the attack was Laura Loomer, once widely seen as an important Trump confidante, who claimed on X that Krishnan’s nomination was “deeply disturbing.” She pivoted to falsely claiming that India—where Krishnan was born—“doesn’t have running water or toilet paper,” and said that America was built by “white Europeans” and “not third world invaders from India.” Scan X and you’ll see that many criticisms of the Krishnan nomination mock the people of India, and some even refer to Americans of Indian origin as “guests” of the U.S. One comment describes Krishnan as an “Indian,” even though he moved to America in 2005 and has been a U.S. citizen for years. Another poster wrote to Krishnan, “please stay at home in India. We do not want you here in our home.” Yet another wrote, “Did any of yall [sic] vote for this Indian to run America?”—prompting Silicon Valley entrepreneur David Sacks to rush to his friend’s defense, saying: “Sriram has been a U.S. citizen for a decade. He’s not ‘running America.’ He’s advising on AI policy. He will have no influence over U.S. immigration policy.”
The immigration war within MAGA World is a proxy for the frustrations of the American working class left behind by globalization. Many blue-collar workers rightly feel anxiety and resentment over the shifts that have left them without jobs or opportunities in their own country. It’s largely why Trump appealed to these voters in 2016 and won a second term this year.
But America’s working-class base is mostly unaffected by the entry of the highly skilled workers who usually qualify for H-1B visas. This immigration debate has a lot more to do with an ugly force that is increasingly powering the MAGA right. Put bluntly, it’s racism—pure and simple.
Right now, we are navigating a culture where the idea of race and racism is fueling two movements—the illiberal right and the illiberal left. Both sides argue that a person’s race, rather than their merit, is the most important trait or determinant of their success. The illiberal left argues that people of color, who suffer from systemic racism, shouldn’t be expected to compete on merit. The illiberal right shockingly argues that people of color, especially immigrants of color, have no place in their country’s society.
The latter is something I have personally experienced.
One year ago, when I defended the building of a Hindu statue on private property in Canada on the grounds of religious freedom, I was hit with an outpouring of racism and bigotry—most of it coming from right-wing commenters whom I had once defended when their freedoms were under attack. I, too, was referred to as a “guest” and told to “go back home,” even though I’ve been in Canada for more than a quarter of a century and I’m now a Canadian citizen. That this hatred was brewing among those who believe progressive identity politics are “racist” was an unforgettable reminder that neither political side is immune to bigotry.
Now, the emerging battle on the right over immigration policy is threatening to fracture the MAGA movement, dividing its adherents into two camps. On one side are the so-called “tech bros,” a group led by figures like Musk, Sacks, and Krishnan—many immigrants themselves—who strongly advocate welcoming highly skilled immigrants into the U.S., particularly in fields like technology. On the other side lies the nativist wing, embodied by personalities like Steve Bannon, a former advisor to Trump in his first term, who not only oppose immigration but question whether Indian Americans like Ramaswamy or Krishnan are truly “American.”
This schism marks the first major public battle for the soul of MAGA since Trump’s 2016 election victory. And the first round seems to have been won by Musk and associates, for now. On Saturday, Trump came down firmly in support of H-1B visas for skilled workers, telling the New York Post he employs people on the visas at his properties, saying: “I’ve always liked the visas, I have always been in favor of the visas. That’s why we have them.”
In the midst of this churn, there’s another story here, a positive one, and that is the ascent of Indian Americans into the U.S. elite—from White House nominees such as Vivek Ramaswamy, Kash Patel, Harmeet Dhillon, and Jay Bhattacharya, to Silicon Valley executives such as Sundar Pichai and Satya Nadella, to name just a few. Americans of Indian origin now have the highest median household income of any group in the country.
The fact that first- and second-generation Indian immigrants to America have reached the highest echelons of business and culture should be cause for celebration—the realization of the American Dream. And yet there are worrying signs that, for some members of the MAGA right, the U.S. has become too diverse for their taste. The controversy over Krishnan underscores important questions that the leaders of the American right must confront:
Do they seek to live in a system that guarantees equality of opportunity, where the best and brightest can contribute and thrive? Or does their vision now resemble something darker and more insular, like that of their erstwhile “woke” foes, which attacks success when it’s enjoyed by the “wrong” people?
