Trump Slips Up And Tells The Truth: America Needs Immigrants

By Felicia J. Persaud

News Americas, NEW YORK, NY, Fri. Nov. 21, 2025: Every now and then, the impossible happens. Water runs uphill. Pigs fly. And Donald J. Trump tells the truth.

Yes, you read that right. The man famous for “alternative facts” and creative truth-telling has done something few thought possible – he admitted a fact backed by evidence.

In a recent interview with Fox News’ Laura Ingraham, Trump acknowledged something that economists, CEOs, and anyone who’s ever tried to hire a qualified engineer already knows: there aren’t enough skilled workers in the U.S.

“You don’t have certain talents, and people have to learn,” Trump 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.”

Well, imagine that – Trump, the man who built a political brand on blaming immigrants for everything from job losses to border chaos, now admitting that America needs immigrant talent.

The $100,000 Visa Wall

Of course, this flash of honesty comes wrapped in contradiction. Just weeks earlier, Trump imposed a $100,000 one-time fee on H-1B visas – the very program designed to attract high-skilled foreign workers in fields like tech and engineering.

The result? A policy that economists say could “kneecap” American innovation. According to the National Bureau of Economic Research, startups with higher H-1B hiring rates are far more likely to go public, get acquired, or secure major patents and funding.

In fiscal 2024, nearly 400,000 H-1B visas were approved – double the number from 2020. And leaders like Elon Musk have long argued that these visas help keep the U.S. competitive globally. Yet, Trump’s fee ensures only billion-dollar corporations, not startups or universities, can afford them.

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick defended the fee at the time, saying, “If you have a very sophisticated engineer and you want to bring them in… then you can pay $100,000.” Easy to say when you’re not a small business owner trying to hire one.

Raiding The Future

Protesters demonstrate against anti-immigration raids while outside a closed Latino-owned bakery on November 18, 2025 in Charlotte, North Carolina. Some businesses have shut down in Charlotte, fearing federal agents will target their customers during the ongoing Operation Charlotte’s Web to detain undocumented immigrants in the city. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images)

Trump’s newfound appreciation for skilled immigrants also comes after his ICE agents raided a Hyundai factory in Georgia, detaining 475 workers like common criminals – most of them South Korean specialists building EV batteries.

The raid delayed production by months and infuriated South Korea and Hyundai’s leadership, which had just announced a $26 billion U.S. investment. Trump now admits the move may have gone too far.

“You know, making batteries is very complicated,” he told Ingraham. “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.”

So, after deporting the very workers teaching Americans how to build the clean energy technology of the future, Trump now realizes – oops – maybe we actually need them.

The Truth He Can’t Escape

For once, Trump has stumbled into reality: the U.S. simply doesn’t have enough engineers, scientists, and skilled tradespeople to meet demand. Immigrants fill those gaps – and have for generations.

But here’s the kicker – while Trump admits the truth about America’s talent shortage, he’s still enforcing policies that make it harder for those very workers to come, stay, or succeed.

Economists at the National Foundation for American Policy estimate that his immigration agenda would cut the U.S. workforce by 15.7 million people and shrink GDP growth by one-third over the next decade. In other words, “America First” is starting to look a lot like “America Left Behind.”

So yes, Donald Trump finally told the truth – but like so many times before, he’s standing in the way of it.

Felicia J. Persaud is the founder and publisher of NewsAmericasNow.com, the only daily newswire and digital platform dedicated exclusively to Caribbean Diaspora and Black immigrant news across the Americas.