In quintessential Howard Lutnick fashion, the commerce secretary forced the White House to spend 24 hours performing cleanup after his comments about changes to the H-1B visa program for skilled foreign workers. Lutnick had insisted that President Donald Trump’s new $100,000 fee for H-1B visas was not just an annual charge, but one that would apply to both new and existing visa holders.

Lutnick’s Sept. 19 announcement resulted in tech giants such as Google and Amazon demanding that their H-1B visa employees jet home before the weekend was over. At San Francisco‘s airport, Indian workers, who were supposed to fly home through Dubai, deplaned in a panic from an Emirates flight. More than 125 workers flying from Mumbai raced back with an hour to spare before the fee was supposed to go into effect.