In a podcast interview, former President Donald Trump proposed issuing green cards to all foreign students who graduate from U.S. universities and colleges, but hard-line immigration groups slammed the idea as an “absurd proposal.”
“I believe that if you graduate from college, you should automatically get a green card as part of your diploma and be able to stay in this country, and that includes junior college,” Trump, 78, told the “All In Podcast.”
Jason Calacanis, the Silicon Valley tech investor who hosts the podcast, sparked the response when he asked if the 45th president would “promise us more capacity to import the best and the brightest people from around the world into America?”
“I promise you this,” Trump said before proposing to allow foreign graduates of U.S. four-year and two-year higher education institutions to stay in the country.
The Prime Minister also asserted that he would have implemented the policy had the COVID-19 pandemic not emerged during the final year of his first term.
Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, told The Washington Post that providing green cards was an “absurd proposal” that would essentially “staple green cards onto the diplomas of U.S. college graduates” and unleash a “gusher of foreign money.”
“If someone gets a PhD in science from a university, I will personally drive them to their house and give them a green card,” Krikorian said. “The problem is that foreign university graduates with fake two-year master’s degrees or gender studies degrees are coming in. [major]you will get a green card.
“If this proposal is adopted, it will lead to a proliferation of accelerated, one-year master’s programs across the country as a way to sell green cards to foreigners,” he added, saying lobbyists would “exploit” this to profit from “billions of people around the world.”
“There is no percentage limit for a particular institution,” Krikorian concluded. “International students are one of the drivers of migration, because if they come here from Yemen or Cameroon to study, why would they want to go back home?”
“This applies only to the most thoroughly vetted college graduates whose wages will never be less than those of American workers,” Caroline Leavitt, national spokeswoman for the Trump campaign, argued in a statement.
“President Trump has vowed to close the border and begin the largest mass deportation of illegal immigrants in history on the first day of his administration,” Leavitt added, touting an “aggressive vetting process” that will “weed out all communists, Islamic extremists, Hamas sympathizers, America-haters and government employees.”
“He believes that only after such vetting has taken place should we retain the most outstanding graduates who can make a significant contribution to America,” she explained. “This only applies to the most thoroughly vetted college graduates who will never earn less than American wages or workers.”
“We already have too many international students,” Krikorian countered. “When you bring in large groups, it inevitably affects American wages.”
There are more than 1 million foreign university students in the US, according to a November report from the Institute for International Educational Exchange, meaning that if Trump’s proposal goes ahead, it could become one of the most popular new avenues for immigration to the US.
Of the 1,057,188 international students studying in the United States in the 2022-2023 academic year, an estimated 289,526 (27%) will be from China and 268,923 (25%) will be from India.
Other countries with large numbers of international students studying in the U.S. include South Korea (4.1%), Canada (2.6%), Vietnam (2.1%), Taiwan (2.1%), Nigeria (1.7%) and Japan (1.5%).
Foreign students are in demand at some universities. Often charge higher tuition fees There are more students enrolled than in the US, which means more revenue for the university.
Because state governments often mandate large quotas for in-state students and require large numbers of in-state students to enroll at lower tuition rates, tuition fees for international students at public universities are often higher than for out-of-state students.
Extending green cards would run counter to some of the immigration restrictions Trump promises to impose if elected to a second term, including plans to expel “approximately 20 million” illegal immigrants through “the largest mass deportation program” in U.S. history.
At a campaign rally in Wisconsin on Tuesday, President Trump sharply criticized President Biden over his “mass amnesty” plan to offer work permits to foreign graduates of U.S. universities and grant permanent residency to immigrants who marry Americans.
“All illegal immigrants have to do is apply for his new programs — sham marriages, college degrees, etc. — and they can expect amnesty and taxpayer support,” he said of the plan the Biden administration announced this week.
“We support illegal immigrants while our soldiers and veterans die on the streets of badly governed Democrat cities,” he added.
“Our country is being invaded. We shouldn’t be talking about amnesty. We should be talking about stopping the invasion.”
Biden’s proposal highlighted speeding up visa approvals for the roughly 600,000 immigrants who qualify for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, as well as other non-citizen college graduates.
Trump did not specify Thursday whether he would extend automatic work authorization to DACA holders, a major focus of the immigration package Biden announced Tuesday.
In fiscal year 2023, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services processed a record 10.9 million naturalization applications, further increasing the backlog.
That year, visa processing delays were reduced overall by just 15 percent. According to authorities878,500 new citizens took the oath of allegiance.
A CBS/YouGov poll conducted this month found immigration is one of Biden’s weakest issues among U.S. voters, with majorities of Hispanics also lining up with Trump on efforts to deport illegal immigrants.
One of the hosts of “All In,” David Sachs, supported the former president’s 2024 presidential bid.
