Trump’s Reversals on Immigration Mount Over Economic Concerns

President Trump entered the White House in January promising both the “largest deportation program in American history” and a “golden age” for American businesses.

But in recent weeks, the tension between those two promises has spilled out into the open, leading Mr. Trump to reverse or contradict some of his most significant anti-immigration policies when they threatened to disrupt the economy.

Mr. Trump has celebrated his success in driving down illegal border crossings and in cracking down on immigration more broadly. But he walks a careful line when his hard-line policies collide with his economic agenda — particularly when it comes to foreign workers, student visas and industries that rely on immigrant labor.

The changing positions have not only infuriated his far-right allies, but have also confused those aiming to carry out his deportation policies.

Abigail Jackson, a White House spokeswoman, said in a statement that Mr. Trump “has been incredibly consistent with his immigration policies.” To suggest otherwise, she added, “demonstrates a fundamental lack of understanding of the president’s agenda.”

Ms. Jackson said that “while anyone in the country illegally is eligible for deportation, the priority remains criminal illegals who terrorize American communities.”

Mr. Trump last week faced an uproar after immigration agents arrested nearly 500 workers, most of them South Korean citizens, at the construction site of an electric vehicle battery plant in Georgia. The raid caused deep anger in South Korea — a key U.S. ally and trading partner — and had the potential to discourage exactly the kind of foreign investment in U.S. manufacturing that Mr. Trump is trying to achieve.

Even though the Trump administration had argued the workers were in the United States illegally, Mr. 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 officials in Seoul. Most of the workers did end up returning to South Korea.

Mr. Trump similarly appeared to pull back on his hard-line approach to student visas when it risked upending the finances of American colleges and universities. In May, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that the Trump administration would work to “aggressively revoke” visas of Chinese students, and that the administration would “enhance scrutiny” of future applicants from China.

Chinese undergraduates often pay full tuition for their education.

Nearly two months later, Mr. Trump shocked his conservative allies when he said he would let 600,000 Chinese students into American universities. “I like that other countries’ students come here,” Mr. Trump said. “And you know what would happen if they didn’t? Our college system would go to hell very quickly.”

Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republican of Georgia, responded by questioning why the administration would allow “600,000 students from China to replace our American student’s opportunities?”

“We should never allow that,” she wrote on X.

Laura Ingraham, the Fox News anchor, pressed Howard Lutnick, the commerce secretary, on Mr. Trump’s turnabout.

“How is allowing 600,000 students from the communist country of China putting America first?” Ms. Ingraham asked Mr. Lutnick, who argued that Mr. Trump was trying to help support colleges.

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

A White House official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to describe the administration’s approach to student visas, said the 600,000 visas were an estimate of the total number of visas expected for Chinese students over the next two years under the government’s existing policy.

In June, Mr. Trump recognized that his immigration agenda was taking a toll on certain industries, including agriculture.

“Our great Farmers and people in the Hotel and Leisure business have been stating that our very aggressive policy on immigration is taking very good, long time workers away from them, with those jobs being almost impossible to replace,” he wrote on social media.

That same day, ICE officials sent out guidance telling their agents to largely avoid enforcement at work sites in certain industries, including hotels and restaurants. Days later, officials appeared to backtrack on the guidance, and claimed that all operations would remain on the table.

Mr. Trump on various occasions has tried to appease both immigration hard-liners and those who rely on immigrant workers.

During the transition, Mr. Trump weighed in on a heated debate among his supporters over immigrants and the economy, saying he had used visas for skilled-immigrant workers for his own businesses. (Mr. Trump only used the visas, known as H-1B, sparingly.)

His comments were celebrated by technology executives who said they relied on the program because they could not find enough qualified American workers. But right-wing activists, including Laura Loomer and Stephen K. Bannon, said the program was harmful because it brought in workers willing to accept lower salaries than Americans.

Last year, in an interview with the hosts of a popular Silicon Valley podcast, Mr. Trump backed permanent residency for immigrants who study at U.S. colleges. “What I will do is: You graduate from a college, I think you should get automatically, as part of your diploma, a green card to be able to stay in this country, and that includes junior colleges,” he said.

Hours later, a spokesman walked the comment back and said Mr. Trump would impose an “aggressive vetting process” for foreign students.

Now in office, the Trump administration has rescinded hundreds of student visas and has moved to rescind green cards from pro-Palestinian protesters or scholars.

Mark Krikorian, the head of the Center for Immigration Studies, a group that supports restrictions on immigration, said business interests have for decades swayed Republican administrations, which advocated not just mass deportations but also comprehensive immigration reform.

Despite Mr. Trump’s reversals, Mr. Krikorian said he still believed business interests would not curtail the Trump administration’s deportation agenda.

“There’s no question that the concerns of businesses are going to get a hearing in a Republican administration or a Republican Congress, but it’s not going to be the kind of relationship that existed in the past,” he said.

Mr. Trump’s allies acknowledged that he was sensitive to business leaders who may be anxious over his immigration policy.

Kenneth T. Cuccinelli II, a former acting deputy homeland security secretary under Mr. Trump, has argued that strict immigration limits benefit poor Americans seeking employment. (Many economists have found that immigration has bolstered the U.S. economy.)

“The president is a businessman,” Mr. Cuccinelli said. “He has a concern when people say, ‘You know, I won’t be able to do business.’”