The collision of Trump’s deportation and economic policies

Even as President Trump has celebrated his success in cracking down on immigration, he’s pulled back in recent weeks when it comes to foreign workers, student visas and industries that depend on immigrant labor, says a New York Times analysis.

For example, immigration agents arrested nearly 500 workers, most of them South Korean citizens, at the construction site of an electric vehicle battery plant in Georgia — with the potential to discourage exactly the kind of foreign investment in U.S. manufacturing that Trump is trying to achieve, the Times says.

Trump temporarily paused the deportations to consider allowing the South Korean workers to stay in the United States and help finish the factory, according to South Korean officials. Most of the workers ended up returning to South Korea.

In another instance, Trump shocked his conservative allies when he said he would let 600,000 Chinese students into U.S. universities. 

“We should never allow that,” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., wrote on X.

“How is allowing 600,000 students from the communist country of China putting America first?” Fox News anchor Laura Ingraham asked Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick.

“His view is he’s taking a rational economic view,” Lutnick said. 

Chinese undergraduates frequently pay full tuition for their education, the Times notes.

ICE officials sent out guidance telling their agents to largely avoid enforcement at work sites in some industries, including hotels and restaurants. Officials appeared to backtrack on the guidance days later, and claimed that all operations would remain on the table, the Times says.

“His heart isn’t in the nativist purge the way that the rest of his administration’s heart is into it,” says David Bier, director of immigration studies at the Cato Institute. “He’s always been someone who likes to dabble in that type of rhetoric. But at the same time, he’s always had a soft spot for the economic needs from a business perspective.”