Donald Trump makes claim that HBCUs would “go out of business” without students from China

In a recent interview, President Donald Trump defended H-1B visas and international students, but made a grand claim about historically Black colleges and universities when doing so. According to the president, international students from China keep HBCUs afloat.

“We do have a lot of people coming in from China,” President Trump said in an interview with Fox News’ Laura Ingraham on Monday. “We also have a massive system of colleges and universities, and if we were to cut that in half… you would have half the colleges in the United States go out of business.”⁠

Among those schools that the president said wouldn’t survive a loss of international students are HBCUs.

“You would have the historically Black colleges and universities would all be out of business,” he continued.

Trump’s inclusion of HBCUs in his comments is puzzling, given that international students make up a small percentage of HBCU enrollment. According to the data from the Institute of Educational Sciences obtained by Black Information Network, 2.5% of HBCU students are international students, and most of them are from Africa and the Caribbean.

The president also seemed to be defending international workers after some of his previous actions regarding H-1B visas, which are issued to foreign-born workers who specialize in certain industries or “specialty occupations,” to temporarily work in the United States. In September, the White House issued restrictions on H-1B visas, citing that the “abuse” of the program made it more difficult for American college students to find jobs in IT.

His base, which has largely supported his anti-immigration, “America First” policies, took issue with his comments on Fox News that international students “bring talent” to America’s workforce. Republican Party members like U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene are currently fighting to get rid of H-1B visas entirely. Greene wrote on X this week that she was introducing a bill that would eliminate the program.

Ingraham argued with Trump that there are “plenty of talented people” in the U.S. to take on jobs that might be given to international workers, but the president claimed otherwise.

“You don’t have certain talents and people have to learn. You can’t take people off an unemployment line and tell them ‘I’m gonna put you into a factory and you’re gonna make missiles.’ … It doesn’t work that way.”