Alphabet’s Eric Schmidt: H1-B visa cap is ‘stupid’

Eric Schmidt, the executive chairman of Google’s parent company, Alphabet, doesn’t think very highly of U.S. limits on visas for high-skilled immigrants.

“The single stupidest policy in the entire American political system was the limit on H-1B visas,” Schmidt said at an event at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab on Wednesday, according to CNN.

{mosads}H-1B visas for high-skilled workers are currently capped at 85,000 annually. Those visas filled were within five days this year, something that has repeatedly happened in recent years. Critics argue this means the program should be expanded.

Those 85,000 visas are distributed via a lottery system, which President Trump critiqued in a recent executive order on high-skilled immigration.

“Right now, H-1B visas are awarded in a totally random lottery — and that’s wrong,” Trump said when he signed an executive order in April.

Silicon Valley companies that rely on H-1B visas for hard-to-fill positions had been unsure of the tack Trump would take on immigration policies, but they have largely supported Trump’s moves so far.

His executive order was sparse on details, but the president made it clear that he would crack down on H-1B abuse.