WASHINGTON: Softening his stance on immigration, former US President Donald Trump has promised to give automatic green cards to foreign students who graduate from US colleges to prevent them from returning to their home countries like India and China where they become multibillionaires.
Trump’s departure from the anti-immigrant rhetoric comes ahead of the November presidential election in which immigration and deportation of illegal immigrants are among the key issues for voters. Trump, however, always supported a merit-based legal immigration system.
“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,” Trump, 78, said in the “All-In” podcast. A Green Card, known officially as a permanent resident card, is an identity document showing a person has permanent residency in the United States.
Trump’s remarks came as he was pressed to “promise us you will give us more ability to import the best and brightest around the world to America.”
Trump, the presumptive candidate from the Republican Party, also lamented “stories where people graduated from a top college or from a college, and they desperately wanted to stay here, they had a plan for a company, a concept, and they can’t they go back to India, they go back to China, they do the same basic company in those places… and they become multi-billionaires employing thousands and thousands of people, and it could have been done here.”
According to the latest annual Open Doors report of the Institute of International Education, China remained the top-sending country in 2022/23, with 289,526 students studying in the US. India, the second largest sending country, reached an all-time high of 268,923 students in 2022/23, an increase of 35 per cent as against the previous year.