He says it will prevent bright students from returning to their home countries, like India and China, where they become multibillionaires.
Our Bureau
Washington
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump announced to provide automatic Green Cards to foreign students who graduate from US colleges. In a podcast, that was hosted by four venture capitalists: Chamath Palihapitiya, Jason Calacanis, David Sacks, and David Friedberg, three of whom are immigrants, Trump said that the move was needed to prevent bright students from returning to their home countries like India and China, where they become multibillionaires.
This came after US President Joe Biden announced on Tuesday a large-scale immigration program that will offer legal status and a streamlined path to US. residency and citizenship to around half a million unauthorized immigrants who are married to American citizens.
Trump is known for his hard anti-immigrant stand. “What I want to do and what I will do is –you graduate from a college, I think you should get a Green Card automatically as part of your diploma, a Green Card to be able to stay in this country. And that includes junior colleges too,” he said in the ‘All-In’ podcast.
“Let me just tell you that it’s so sad when we lose people from Harvard, MIT, from the greatest schools, and lesser schools that are phenomenal schools also. And what I wanted to do, and I would have done this, but then we had to solve the Covid problem because that came in and, you know, sort of dominated for a little while, as you perhaps know,” Trump said.
A green card, officially known as a Permanent Resident Card, is a document issued by the US government that grants the holder permanent resident status.
Immigration is one of the key election issues in the US. A recent poll by Pew Research Centre showed that 59% of registered US voters wanted citizenship to be awarded to immigrants.
