Top Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump has demanded that Disney World rehire all of its 250 tech employees who were replaced last June by cheaper foreign IT workers on H-1B visas mostly from India.
“If I am President, I will not issue any H-1B visas to companies that replace American workers and my Department of Justice will pursue action against them,” Trump said in an interview and claimed that more than 80 per cent of the H-1B workers were being paid less than the prevailing average wages.
Blasting fellow presidential aspirant Marco Rubio for co-sponsoring a Bill in Senate to triple the number of H-1B visas, Trump asked the Florida Senator to “return the money he has received from Silicon Valley CEOs”.
“I am calling today on Disney to hire back every one of the workers they replaced, and I am calling on Rubio to immediately rescind his sponsorship of the I-Squared bill and apologise to every Floridian for endorsing it,” he told Breitbart News.
“I am further calling on Rubio to return the money he has received from Silicon Valley CEOs and to donate the money to a charity helping unemployed Americans whose jobs Rubio has helped to destroy,” said Trump, alleging that “lobbyists write the rules to benefit the rich and powerful” and then “they buy off Senators like Sen. Marco Rubio to help them get rich at the expense of working Americans by using H-1B visas – so called ‘high tech’ visas – to replace American workers in all sorts of solid middle class jobs.”
In sharp contrast to his new offensive, Trump had suggested at the Republican debate on Wednesday night that he was all for work visas or permits that enable the United States to tap and retain foreign talent. He, however, had referred only to foreign students graduating from top American universities but were faced with the prospect of having to go back home.
The Orlando, Florida-based Disney World came under flak in June as it laid off all 250 of its tech workers and ordered them to train the foreign workers on H-1B visas who were to replace them.