Republican Sen. Eric Schmitt of Missouri unloaded an extremist diatribe at the National Conservatism Conference (NatCon 2025) in Washington, DC, on Tuesday (US time), as he resorted to redefining who the United States “belongs to.” With even legal immigration now the subject of enhanced scrutiny, the US senator vehemently spoke out against America drawing in highly skilled talent for jobs to “replace American workers.”
Taking to his X profile thereafter, he shared a glimpse of his address from the conference. “The H-1B visa was sold as a way to keep America ‘competitive,'” he wrote online. “Instead, it imported millions of foreign nationals to replace America workers–and transferred entire industries into the lands of foreign lobbies.”
US Senator fumes about legal immigration, H-1B visa program
He further added, “‘Legal’ immigration can harm Americans too.” Additionally, in his National Conservatism Conference speech he took issue with the “old conservatism establishment” for paving the road for legal immigration.
“At this point it should be clear that the fact that something is sanctioned by our government doesn’t mean it’s good for our country,” he continued at the event. Schmitt then shed light on various forms of legal immigration, particularly the H-1B visa for highly skilled foreign workers seeking employment opportunities in the US.
“… Of course we do have an interest in attracting the truly exceptional few, the very best and the brightest in the world. But that’s not how programs like H-1B have actually functioned,” he went on. Senator Schmitt further noted that this particular visa program was enlisting foreign workers not for jobs that Americans “can’t or won’t do,” but to “undercut American wages, replace American workers and transfer entire industries into the hands of foreign lobbies.”
The H-1B visa was sold as a way to keep America "competitive."
— Senator Eric Schmitt (@SenEricSchmitt) September 3, 2025
Instead, it imported millions of foreign nationals to replace American workers—and transferred entire industries into the hands of foreign lobbies.
"Legal" immigration can harm Americans too. pic.twitter.com/LJZ6UfMyj5
The Republican politician perpetuated white nationalist views by foregrounding that the country was deeply invested in attracting millions of foreign nationals to take on roles and salaries that “should belong to our own children. Schmitt then went on to basically accuse the legal immigration for exploiting the futures of “Americans” by relying on foreign labour just because it was “cheaper and more compliant.” The Missouri politician claimed that it all inevitably rendered international workers more preferable in the eyes of “business elites who see their own countrymen as an inconvenience.”
His scathing remarks went as far as suggesting the H-1B program was abused to “kneecap” white collar workers. “For the tens of thousands of Americans who are forced to train their foreign H-1B replacements just to get their severance package,” he continued. “The fact that it’s legal is of little comfort.”
What is America? Who it ‘belongs to’ – Senator Eric Schmitt
During the same address, he also hailed US President Donald Trump for being different from the “old conservatism and the old liberalism alike,” because he “knows that America is not just an abstract ‘proposition,’ but a nation and a people, with its own distinct history and heritage and interests.”
Trump based his presidential election campaign on policies countering illegal immigration, but the MAGA movement has now expanded the pool in light of the repeated attacks on even forms of legal immigration. With senior official reiterating such comments, many from the Trump administration have long vowed an overhaul of the H-1B visa program. Amidst all that, Eric Schmitt took a step further in redefining the sense of belongingness associated with America.
He claimed that the country was a “gift” to “us” from the Continental Army soldiers at Valley Forge, Pilgrims at Plymouth, pioneers in Missouri and Kentucky settlers “repelling wave after wave of Indian war band attacks.” Schmitt said the US “belongs to us. It’s our birthright, our heritage, our destiny,” adding “If America is everything and everyone, then it is nothing and no one at all.”
Not including any nonwhite people in this definition, he sent out a vicious warning, saying, “When they tear down our statues and monuments, mock our history, and insult our traditions, they’re attacking our future as well as our past. By changing the stories we tell about ourselves, they believe they can build a new America—with the new myths of a new people.
“But America does not belong to them. It belongs to us. It’s our home. It’s a heritage entrusted to us by our ancestors. It is a way of life that is ours, and only ours, and if we disappear, then America, too, will cease to exist.”
This is a developing story.