President Donald Trump has appeared to change his tune on the stringency on one of his immigration policies, speaking about the importance of H-1B visas for specialized labor only a couple months after imposing steep hurdles meant to reduce the number of those visas doled out by U.S. companies.
Trump told Fox News’ Laura Ingraham in an interview released on Sunday that although he continues to believe the U.S. would not be able to increase wages for American employees if it brought in thousands of foreign workers, he also said the American workforce is lacking in key areas.
“You don’t have certain talents, and people have to learn,” he said. “You can’t just say a country is coming in, going to invest $10 billion to build a plant and take people off an unemployment line who haven’t worked in five years and they’re going to start making their missiles. It doesn’t work that way.”
In September, the White House imposed a $100,000 one-time fee on H1-B visas, meant for high-skilled workers, many of whom enter the tech sector. Experts, such as Y Combinator CEO Gary Tan, said the move would “kneecap” startups and other smaller businesses unable to brush off the steep fee. A 2020 National Bureau of Economic Research study found startups with higher H-1B visa rates were more likely to achieve an IPO or acquisition, as well as secure top funding and patents.
Nearly 400,000 H-1B visas were approved in fiscal 2024, double what was approved in fiscal 2020. Big names in tech, such as Elon Musk, have previously expressed fervent support for the visas (without the $100,000 fee) as attracting the best and brightest workers to U.S. companies.
At the time Trump signed the proclamation implementing the H-1B visa fee, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick argued doling out as many visas—which require a bachelor’s degree and have usually been distributed via lottery—would not be economically efficient for the U.S.
“If you’re going to train people, you’re going to train Americans.” Lutnick told reporters. “If you have a very sophisticated engineer and you want to bring them in…then you can pay $100,000 a year for your H-1B visa.”
Economists have warned the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown could lead to negative net migration, which would pummel the U.S. labor force and reduce American spending power, both of which could shrink U.S. GDP growth. A National Foundation for American Policy study last month found Trump’s immigration policies would slash the U.S. workforce by about 15.7 million and reduce GDP growth by one-third over the next decade.
The White House did not immediately respond to Fortune’s request for comment.
Trump on the Georgia Hyundai plant ICE raid
Trump also hinted to Ingraham that he has not always made the right calls in eradicating foreign workers. The proclamation to hike H-1B fees came only weeks after Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents—who received a $30 billion bump in funding for arrests and deportations from Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill”—raided a Hyundai manufacturing plant in Georgia, detaining 475 workers, most of whom were from South Korea, where the company is headquartered. ICE agents alleged the South Korean workers overstayed their visas or had permits that did not grant them permissions for manual labor.
Shortly after the raid, Hyundai CEO José Muñoz said the ICE raids set back the factory opening by two or three months. The auto company announced earlier this year it would invest $26 billion in U.S. manufacturing.
In the Sunday interview, Trump reiterated the fears of scaring off foreign workers that he had expressed shortly after the raid, saying ICE raided the facility in effort to get rid of undocumented workers, but that the factory employees from South Korea had advanced experience in making the batteries to power the Hyundai electric vehicles.
“You know, making batteries is very complicated. It’s not an easy thing. Very dangerous, a lot of explosions, a lot of problems,” Trump said. “They had like 500 or 600 people, early stages, to make batteries and to teach people how to do it. Well, they wanted them to get out of the country. You’re going to need that, Laura.”
