Far-right activist schooled for slamming Indian-origin Sriram Krishnan's appointment as Trump advisor
American far-right political activist Laura Loomer has criticised the appointment of Indian-origin Sriram Krishnan as Donald Trump’s AI advisor.
American far-right political activist Laura Loomer has criticised the appointment of Indian-origin Sriram Krishnan as Donald Trump’s AI advisor. In a post shared on X this afternoon, she said that Krishnan’s views on immigration are diametrically opposite to Trump’s. Loomer claimed that Krishnan wants to remove all caps on green cards so foreign students can come to the United States and take up jobs that should instead go to Americans.
Loomer, a prominent voice in the far-right rhetoric, dug up Krishnan’s old tweet on removing the country cap on green cards to make her case. However, she was schooled by a large section of the social media platform which claimed that Krishnan was only speaking about the removal of country caps on green cards.
What is per country cap on green cards?
The country cap on green cards refers to a policy in the United States' immigration system that limits the number of green cards (permanent residency) issued to individuals from any single country each year.
Under US law, no country can receive more than 7% of the total family-sponsored and employment-based green cards available each fiscal year. This applies regardless of the population size or the demand for green cards from that country.
Countries like India, China, Mexico, and the Philippines often face significant backlogs due to the high number of applicants exceeding the cap.
Loomer’s take
In her X post, Laura Loomer claimed that Sriram Krishnan’s appointment to the Trump administration was “deeply disturbing” as his views on immigration differ from Trump’s.
“Deeply disturbing to see the appointment of Sriram Krishnan @sriramk as Senior Policy Advisor for AI at the Office of Science and Technology Policy,” she wrote.
“How will we control immigration in our country and promote America First innovation when Trump appointed this guy who wants to REMOVE all restrictions on green card caps in the United States so that foreign students (which makes up 78% of the employees in Silicon Valley) can come to the US and take jobs that should be given to American STEM students,” the far-right political activist asked.
Controlling immigration has been one of Trump’s key agendas on the back of which he won his latest term as the president of the United States.
Loomer shared a screenshot of Krishnan’s tweet from November 2024 in which he wrote: “Anything to remove country caps for green cards/ unlock skilled immigration would be huge.”
Laura Loomer gets schooled
Several people in the comments section schooled Loomer for presenting a biased view of Krishnan’s tweet. Among them were Elon Musk and David Sacks.
South African-American entrepreneur David Sacks pointed out that that Sriram Krishnan supports removing country-specific caps on green cards to address unfair wait times for applicants from high-demand countries like India.
“Right now, every country in the world gets allocated the same number of green cards, no matter how many qualified applicants it has. So applicants from India have an 11 year wait whereas applicants from many other countries have no wait at all,” he wrote. “Sriram still supports skills-based criteria for receiving a green card, not making the program unlimited,” Sacks added.
Elon Musk commented on his response, acknowledging that it made sense.
Several other X users also schooled Loomer for wilfully misrepresenting Krishnan’s take on green cards.
Indian-American internet entrepreneur Sriram Krishnan, 41, was recently appointed senior policy advisor for Artificial Intelligence at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.
He served as a General Partner at Andreessen Horowitz till recently and as a personal investor in over two dozen companies including SpaceX, Figma and Scale.ai.
