Grab your popcorn: The Republican infighting over immigration has gotten interesting.

While everyone else was enjoying the holiday week, the MAGAverse was imploding over a debate on H-1B visas, a program often used by tech companies to recruit high-skilled workers to the United States. Incoming president Donald Trump even weighed in on the conversation, siding with tech bros Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy over members of the party who want to see a stop to all forms of immigration.

While it’s amusing to watch the right fight amongst themselves, it’s hard not to lament what this fighting means for the country.

The entire conversation is rooted in a debate over which immigrants are considered “worthy” of entry into the United States. It doesn't help that Musk and Ramaswamy, whom Trump has made a part of his administration, have insulted American workers in the process.

Musk and Ramaswamy anger the MAGA hive

The fight started when Laura Loomer, a far-right activist spotted on the Trump campaign trail earlier this year, criticized Sriram Krishnan, the incoming president’s pick for senior policy adviser for artificial intelligence. Krishnan, a technology entrepreneur and naturalized U.S. citizen, has previously expressed support for easing some immigration restrictions for skilled workers in the tech sector.

Loomer called the appointment “deeply disturbing,” and made a racist comment about immigrants from India being “third-world invaders.”

This prompted responses from Musk and Ramaswamy, who have been appointed to lead the Department of Government Efficiency in Trump’s upcoming administration.

“Our American culture has venerated mediocrity over excellence for way too long (at least since the 90s and likely longer),” Ramaswamy posted to X, formerly known as Twitter. “That doesn’t start in college, it starts YOUNG. A culture that celebrates the prom queen over the math olympiad champ, or the jock over the valedictorian, will not produce the best engineers.”

Ramaswamy, born in Cincinnati to Indian immigrants, is also a former Republican presidential candidate.

Musk, a naturalized U.S. citizen born in South Africa, said he previously held an H-1B visa to work in the United States. His electric-car company Tesla obtained more than 700 of these work visas in 2024.

“The number of people who are super talented engineers AND super motivated in the USA is far too low,” Musk wrote on X, which he also now owns. He later took it a step further, vowing to “go to war” over the issue.

Loomer and other people who criticized the H-1B visas now say X has removed their verification badges.

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Musk, who spread misinformation about undocumented migrants during Trump's reelection campaign, is now defending an immigration program because it benefits him.

The H-1B program has received criticism for being a means for tech moguls to hire labor at lower wages than they would have to pay American workers.

The entire thing is a clash of egos, with little regard for American or immigrant workers.

Republicans have shown no desire to actually improve education

Of course, these insults were met with anger from other members of the Republican coalition.

“What is lazy is for the tech industry to automatically go to foreign workers for their needs,” former presidential candidate Nikki Haley, a child of Indian immigrants who became a South Carolina governor and a U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said on X. “If the tech industry needs workers, invest in our education system. Invest in our American workforce.”

In a way, Haley is right – the answer should be to improve the education system instead of just calling American workers lazy. Of course, that idea is at odds with Trump’s purported plan to close the U.S. Department of Education, a move that will likely add to the inequity in our education system.

After all, Republicans in the states have spent the past few years disparaging public education, targeting diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives and banning books instead of actually improving education.

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Trump will always choose billionaires

Ultimately, Musk didn’t have to go to war with MAGA: Trump agreed with him this past weekend, saying that he employed workers on H-1B visas on his properties (although some think he was mixing up visa programs).

“I’ve always liked the visas, I have always been in favor of the visas," Trump, who restricted H-1B visas during his first term, told the New York Post. "That’s why we have them."

So there you have it – Trump is siding with the millionaires, despite complaints from the voters who elected him.

This is the same man who has said that he wants to have the "largest deportation operation in American history," who has talked about ending birthright citizenship and who wants to bring back family detention.

His reelection campaign focused on the idea that immigrants are ruining the country. Turns out he's fine with immigrants if they help his bottom line.

It's just another promise to his voters that Trump has since changed his tune on. Earlier last month, he admitted that actually lowering grocery prices would be "very hard." And after running a campaign where the xenophobia wasn’t even subtle, he’s willing to reexamine some forms of immigration, so long as it benefits the tech sector’s bottom line.

If anything, the debate over H-1B visas helps the American people realize that they've once again been swindled by a con man who won't actually improve their lives. In reality, the entire soap opera playing out online is not making America any better.

Don't worry, though – I'm sure Trump, Musk and the Republican Party will be back to disparaging immigrants in no time.

Follow USA TODAY elections columnist Sara Pequeño on X, formerly Twitter: @sara__pequeno