Nalin Haley, son of Indian-origin former US ambassador and South Carolina governor Nikki Haley, has again taken aim at the H-1B visa programme while calling on Republicans to prioritise issues affecting young Americans. In a recent appearance on Fox News, he argued that young people feel increasingly shut out of the US job market and housing economy, saying Republican leaders are not addressing their concerns.Haley said the first step for the party was to acknowledge the widening gap between young Americans and the opportunities they were promised. “The goal of every generation is to leave better than you found it right, and now that we are not doing that we are going in the opposite direction and it’s getting worse,” he said, adding that GOP leaders were not speaking to these anxieties. “Congress is nothing more than a glorified nursing home. They either don’t know the problems we’re facing or they are ignoring it, and I don’t know which one is worse.”Pointing to rising unemployment among graduates, Haley said many of his peers with strong academic credentials are unable to find work. “My friend group graduated with great degrees from great schools and not one of them has a job,” he noted, arguing that they must now compete with “foreign workers who are willing to work half their salary and AI, which is a supercomputer.”He tied these frustrations to the housing market, saying first-time home buyers are older than ever. Haley pushed a range of policy steps, including scrapping the H-1B programme. “I think some things that we need to do is, banning H1b visas, make sure corporations are hiring certain numbers of Americans… and not allow corporations and the Chinese Communist Party to buy entire neighborhoods with single family homes,” he said. He also argued that subsidies should prioritise American first-time home buyers over undocumented immigrants.Asked about complaints that young Americans want “free stuff,” Haley said the real issue was the shrinking attainability of the American dream. “Right it seems less and less attainable with each passing day,” he responded, adding that rejecting neoliberal free-market policies did not necessarily mean embracing socialism. “Capitalism is a broad thing. We need it to work for the average every day American and not just for elites and corporations.”Haley warned that Republicans risk losing Gen Z if they do not engage more directly. “When you look at Gen Z most of them have a positive view of socialism… Democrat socialist are reaching out to young people,” he said. “So if Republicans do that, which they need to do, it may stop a lot of people my age from going to Democrats.”
