Florida Governor Ron DeSantis ripped the H-1B program for its abuse of while at the same defending the use of immigrant workers in his state.
The Republican gave a press conference predominantly focused on adjustments he will make in the state to facilitate President-elect Donald Trump's deportation process of illegal immigrants.
"We will allocate resources and ensure state and local officials in Florida are supporting these efforts. We have no time to waste. Florida must lead," DeSantis said, per First Coast News.
However, when it comes to the ever-growing issue of foreign workers under the H-1B program, DeSantis said it was important not to mix the two issues.
"We have legal immigrants in Florida. So you can't conflate illegal immigrants with people who are here legally," he began.
"I've also said we've got some big problems with some of the legal immigration programs that we have," the governor continued before providing an example.
"We've seen this H-1B program, how companies will bring in H-1B [workers], the Americans train the H-1B [workers], and then they fire the Americans and hire the H-1B. How would that even remotely be acceptable?"
DeSantis continued his press conference by criticizing chain migration:
"You have chain migration, which is not merit-based and is bringing in this more distant relatives, not what you want. So there's a whole host of issues there that that need major reform."
At the same time, the governor said he had heard criticisms of immigrant farm laborers and defended them on the grounds of being legal.
