WASHINGTON – Former President Donald Trump In a podcast released Thursday, he suggested that noncitizens in the U.S. should “automatically” get green cards when they graduate from college.
“What I want to do and what I’m going to do is if you graduate from college, I think you should automatically get a green card as part of your degree to be able to stay in this country,” Trump said. “That includes junior colleges.”
Trump made similar comments during the 2016 election campaign restrict legal migration when in office.
Trump’s response on the podcast came in response to one of the podcast hosts commenting that “we need skilled workers in this country.” Another chimed in, noting that three of the four hosts were immigrants.
“Can you please promise us that you will give us more opportunities to import the world’s best and brightest into America?” a presenter answered Trump’s green card.
Trump said he promised to do so, adding that “it’s very sad to lose people from Harvard, MIT, the biggest schools and the smaller schools that are phenomenal schools.”
NBC News reached out to the Trump campaign for comment on its position.
The former president’s comments came moments after Trump’s he often repeated unreasonable claim Migrants crossing the southern border into the United States come from jails, prisons, mental institutions and insane asylums. He also claimed, without any evidence, that “terrorists are coming into our country at a level we have never seen before.”
During the 2016 Republican primary debate, when asked about visas for highly skilled workers, Trump said, “We need highly skilled people in this country.”
Trump said in March 2016: “They’re going to Harvard. They’re going to Stanford. They’re going to Wharton. When they graduate, they’re going to be kicked out. “They want to stay in this country. They cannot stay here.
However, visa denials and extensions have increased during Trump’s tenure in the Oval Office, making it harder for some non-citizen workers to stay in the United States.
In 2019, Trump a merit-based legal immigration system favoring highly skilled migrants. But in 2020, Trump also signed one executive order froze new visas for foreign workers.
Now campaigning for another term, Trump has often made anti-immigrant rhetoric the centerpiece of his campaign speeches.
Trump compared with migrants Hannibal Lecter From the movie “Silence of the Lambs”. He claimed that immigrants to the United States were “poisoning the blood of our country,” rhetoric that the Biden campaign compared. Adolf Hitler. Last month, he claimed, without any evidence, that migrants were bringing a “highly contagious disease”.