Astead Herndon

And those people can... Today Explained.

The debate over high-skill work inside this very anti-immigration Trump White House gets at something awkward.

Maybe what's America first, or good for Trump politically, isn't what's necessarily good for business in America.

Vivek Wadhwa is a longtime tech entrepreneur and runs a medical diagnostics company here in the U.S.

His business relies on foreign workers, many of whom are on H-1B visas.

And Vivek says that the visa system is broken, just not in the way the Trump administration is saying.

Why do you think the H-1B program has been so vital when it comes to entrepreneurship?

You've recently been writing about your experience with H-1Bs, and you write that it has been ripe for abuse.

We heard some of that earlier in the show.

What's been your experiences seeing kind of the system tested in those ways?

salaries.

You know, one of the things we just learned about was kind of how Trump has sent out mixed signals when it comes to H-1B visas.

A lot of parts of his administration have talked against the visas, while he has said in other instances that he finds them to be somewhat effective.

Now, they've announced a $100,000 fee on every H-1B visa application.

So from your perspective, as someone who has leaned on this as an entrepreneur, what would that fee mean for you?

So if I hear you correctly, you're saying the people who are most affected by this proposed fee are the ones in your sphere, maybe not those big companies or even, but the ones who are reliant on folks who use these visas, but that $100,000 would be crippling too.

This strikes me that you were kind of coming up against this two years ago, even before Donald Trump had gotten back into office and then kind of had taken aim at this program more recently.

It seems to me as if you would have known that $100,000 number, that could have made that decision a lot easier for you earlier, right?

Mm-hmm.

You know, you mentioned kind of about being a proud American.