MIAMI — Former President Donald Trump said in an interview published Thursday that he wants to issue automatic green cards to foreign students who graduate from U.S. institutions, a stark shift from his usual anti-immigrant rhetoric on the campaign trail.
In an “All-In” podcast with venture capitalists and tech investors on Wednesday, Trump was asked about plans for companies to be able to import the “best and brightest.”
“What I want to do and will do is, when you graduate from college, I believe you should automatically receive a green card as part of your graduation so that you can stay in this nation. That includes junior colleges and anyone who graduates from a college. “You go there for two or four years,” he replied, promising to handle this worry on the first day.
During his 2024 presidential campaign, Trump has made immigration a centerpiece of his platform. His proposal to grant green cards — documents that provide a road to U.S. citizenship — to possibly hundreds of thousands of foreign graduates would constitute a significant expansion of America’s immigration system that contrasts strongly with his most popular messages about foreigners.
During his rallies, Trump frequently claims that illegal immigrants jeopardize public safety, steal employment, and take government resources, and has even suggested that they are “poisoning the blood of our country.” He has stated that if elected, he will carry out the greatest deportation operation in US history.
Trump and his allies frequently claim to make a distinction between illegal and legal immigration. However, throughout his presidency, Trump advocated restrictions on legal immigration, such as family-based visas and the visa lottery program.
Right after taking office in 2017, he issued his “Buy American and Hire American” executive order, instructing Cabinet members to propose measures to ensure that business visas were only granted to the highest-paid or most skilled applicants to protect American workers.
He has previously stated that the H1-B program, which is routinely used by corporations to hire foreign workers temporarily and that he has utilized in the past, was “very bad” and was used by tech companies to hire foreign workers for lesser pay.
During his chat with “All-In,” Trump blamed the coronavirus outbreak for his inability to adopt these steps while president. He said he has heard stories about students who graduate from prestigious institutions and want to stay in the United States but are unable to obtain visas, forcing them to return to their home countries, notably India and China. He claimed they went on to become multibillionaires, employing thousands of people.
“You need a pool of people to work for your company,” Trump told reporters. “And they must be intelligent individuals. Not everyone can be less than smart. “You need brilliant people.”
According to apnews In a statement issued hours after the podcast was posted, campaign press secretary Karoline Leavitt said: “President Trump has established the most stringent vetting procedure in US history, to remove all communists, radical Islamists, Hamas backers, America haters, and public charges.
He argues that following such testing, we should retain the most skilled graduates who can make major contributions to America. This would only apply to well vetted college graduates who would never undercut American wages or workers.
