WSJ What’s News - What Immigrant Workers’ Loss of Legal Status Mean for Their Employers

Episode Date: May 28, 2025

P.M. Edition for May 28. As the Trump administration has threatened to roll back temporary legal protection of immigrant workers, U.S. businesses are preparing for a blow to their workforce. WSJ senior special writer Ruth Simon visited one such company to understand what that might mean for its business. Plus, Elon Musk criticized President Trump’s tax-and-spending bill, saying that it failed to reduce the federal deficit. And Nvidia’s sales soar as demand for artificial intelligence chips surges, even with the company effectively shut out of China. Alex Ossola hosts. WSJ Future of Everything event  Sign up for the WSJ's free What's News newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Public Mobile, different is calling. Elon Musk joins critics of President Trump's tax and spending bill. Plus, what the loss of legal status of immigrant workers could mean for their employers. It could potentially leave a huge hole in their workforce. These types of workers with these legal protections are employed all around the country. They work for big companies. They work for small employers. And Nvidia sales soar as demand for AI chips surges.

It's Wednesday, May 28th. I'm Alex Osala for the Wall Street Journal. This is the PM edition of What's News, the top headlines and business stories that move the world today. Elon Musk has given new fuel to critics of the Republicans' multi-trillion-dollar tax and spending agenda. In excerpts released Tuesday night from an interview with CBS Sunday Morning, Musk said the tax bill failed to reduce the federal deficit and undermine cost-cutting undertaken

by his Department of Government Efficiency. The bill narrowly passed the House last week and now heads to the Senate, where some fiscal hawks have demanded deeper cuts. Asked about Musk's criticism, Trump alluded to the thin Republican majority in the House and said negotiations were continuing. Separately, President Trump rejected claims that he's backing down on tariffs. In the Oval Office today, the president was asked about a new saying from Wall Street analysts that Trump always chickens out after he had imposed high duties.

It's called negotiation. You set a number. And if you go down, you know, if I set a number at a ridiculous high number and I go down a little bit, you know, a little bit, they want me to hold that number, 145% tariff. Even I said, man, that really got up. You know how it got? Because of Fentanyl and many other things,

and you added it up. I said, where are we now? We're at 14anyl and many other things, and you added it up. I said, where are we now? We're at 145 percent. I said, woo, that's high. Meanwhile, General Motors CEO Mary Barra voiced support for President Trump's tariffs, saying U.S. automakers face unfair disadvantages in the global marketplace. In an interview with Wall Street Journal editor-in-chief Emma Tucker at the Future of Everything event,

Barras said foreign government subsidies and taxes put American car brands at a disadvantage. I can't speak to all the other industries that are facing tariffs, but I can tell you for decades now, it has not been a level playing field for U.S. automakers globally with either tariffs or non-tariff trade barriers. So I think tariffs is one tool that the administration can use to level the playing field. And I also think it's important, maybe I grew up in manufacturing at General Motors, but I think having strong manufacturing capability

in this country is also important. You can follow the WSJ Future of Everything event on our website. We'll leave a link in the show notes. At their meeting earlier this month, of Everything event on our website. We'll leave a link in the show notes. At their meeting earlier this month, Federal Reserve officials signaled concern that large tariff hikes would push up prices and could risk stoking higher inflation. According to minutes from the May 6th and 7th meeting released today, policymakers largely agreed that heightened

economic uncertainty and increased risks of both higher unemployment and inflation warranted no change in their wait-and-see policy. A day after the big three US indexes surged, today stocks ticked lower. Both the Dow and the S&P 500 fell about 0.6 percent, and the Nasdaq slipped roughly half a percent. With a lull in trade war news, NVIDIA has the spotlight. And its business is still booming, even with the company effectively shut out of one of the world's largest markets for advanced artificial intelligence chips. Today, NVIDIA reported about $44 billion in revenue for its fiscal first quarter, which

accounted for the inability to ship $2.5 billion of chips to the Chinese market. The total revenue is up 69% from the same period last year and slightly ahead of Wall Street's expectations for the quarter that ended in April. More crucially, the company's data center business, which includes chips and other components used in AI computing systems, saw revenue surge 73% year over year to roughly $39 billion. Coming up, what a rollback of temporary legal protection of migrant workers could mean for U.S. businesses. That's after the break. We've talked before on the show about the role that migrants play in the workforce,

how companies could be affected if the Trump administration goes ahead with deporting them. One of the companies that would be affected is one of only two that are qualified to make troop parachutes for the U.S. military. WSJ senior special writer Ruth Simon is here now with more. So Ruth, you went to North Carolina to visit Mills Manufacturing. How important are immigrant workers to their operations? So Mills has quite a lot of workers who are immigrants. About a third of their workers are US, and the rest of them are immigrants.

What we're talking about here is one subset of the group, which is about a quarter of their workers who are legally allowed to work in the U.S., but they have a temporary status. There are different programs that have allowed people to come to the U.S. and given them the right to work legally and live here legally, but those protections for that group of workers could be going away. Many of these legal protections have come under fire from the Trump administration, which means these employees are at risk of losing their legal status and risking deportation. What would that mean for businesses like Mills?

It could potentially leave a huge hole in their workforce. These types of workers with these legal protections are employed all around the country. They work for big companies. They work for small employers. Now, I know in the case of Mills and some of the other companies I've spoken with, they're trying to figure out how they can help these workers achieve some sort of permanent legal status. That's a hard process. It's time consuming and there's no guarantee. These are companies that are trying to employ workers who are legally allowed to work in the US. They want to find ways for them to legally stay, but they could be left with gaps in their workforce if they aren't.

And what could that mean for their output, their business? What John Oswald, who runs the company, said to me is if they lose all these workers, they would have to go back to the military and say, what do you want us to prioritize? This is a very complicated operation. They wouldn't be able to get all their work done. And so it would require some tough choices. And it would also take quite some time for the company to recover

because they would have to find more workers. They would have to train those workers. Those workers would have to get up to speed. So given this prospect, what are companies, including Mills, doing to prepare? In the case of Mills, they've brought in a local immigration group to talk to their workers

about what their options are. The head of Mills has lobbied for immigration reform. He's been to Washington, D.C. and is trying to call attention to the problem. I think they're also hoping and praying that they won't have this problem because it's a big one and it's going to be a hard nut for them to crack. That was WSJ Senior Special Writer Ruth Simon. Thank you, Ruth. Pleasure to speak with you.

Macy's said today that its shoppers are buying more this month than they did in March and April to get ahead of the effect of tariffs. The department store chain is raising prices on some items, renegotiating vendor agreements, and shifting its inventory sourcing to ease the brunt of global tariffs. The retailer said that, as of February 1st, about a fifth of its products came from China. In its earnings report today, Macy's said that sales in the first quarter fell 5.1% to $4.6 billion, topping analysts' estimates. It also cut its full-year earnings guidance due to global tariffs and moderating consumer

spending. And some 24 million Americans who live in rural places lack reliable broadband internet. Now many of them may soon get another option, satellite internet. Reporter Patience Hagen told our tech news briefing podcast, How the Commerce Department Plans to Overhaul a Biden-Era Broadband Access Program to Make it More Tech Neutral, Potentially Increasing Support for Satellite Internet. broadband access program to make it more tech neutral, potentially increasing support for satellite internet. This program was designed to bring broadband high-speed internet to every location in the country that still

doesn't have it. And under the Biden administration, it was expected to favor fiber. The Biden administration designed the program's rules in a way that said you had to build fiber cables to every location unless it was too expensive. Then you could turn to other technologies like satellite. So satellite was expected to be part of the mix and receive some of the funding under the Biden administration.

But now with the reforms that the Trump administration is talking about, it looks poised to receive a lot more of this funding. So we're all waiting to find out when the new guidance comes. Virtually every state broadband office is in a holding pattern right now. Some states that had their plans all written up still can't get their funds. And other states are paused and wondering whether they'll have to rewrite their plans for the new guidance.

For more from Patience, listen to tomorrow's episode of Tech News Briefing. And that's what's news for this Wednesday afternoon. Today's show is produced by Anthony Bansi and Pierre Bienamé, with supervising producer Michael Kosmides. I'm Alex Osola for The Wall Street Journal. We'll be back with a new show tomorrow morning. Thanks for listening.