Former United States President Donald Trump has declared that he would automatically grant green cards to foreign graduates of U.S. colleges if re-elected.

Trump made the vow during a podcast interview with Silicon Valley tech investors on Thursday, June 20, 2024.

The former president, known for his tough rhetoric on immigration, promised to make it easier to bring talent to the United States, saying anyone who graduates from a U.S. college should be able to stay in the country.

“It’s so sad when we lose people from Harvard, MIT, the greatest schools, and lesser schools that are phenomenal schools also,” Trump said during an appearance on the All-In Podcast hosted by Chamath Palihapitiya, Jason Calacanis, David Sacks and David Friedberg.

“I think you should get, automatically, as part of your diploma, a green card to be able to stay in this country and that includes junior colleges, too,” Trump added.

A green card gives individuals the right to live and work permanently in the U.S. and offers a pathway to citizenship.

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Trump’s proposal, which would create potentially hundreds of thousands of new citizenship applicants each year, marks a sharp departure from the hardline positions on immigration that propelled his rise within the Republican Party.

Trump, who once claimed migrants were “poisoning the blood of our country”, has pledged to undertake the largest deportation of undocumented migrants in U.S. history if reelected in November and has repeatedly attacked his Democratic rival, President Joe Biden, as being soft on immigration.

At a campaign event in Wisconsin on Tuesday, Trump hit out at a programme Biden announced this week that will allow undocumented spouses of U.S. citizens to apply for permanent residence without having to leave the country.

“Our country is under invasion. We should not be talking amnesty, we should be talking about stopping the invasion instead,” Al Jazeera quoted Trump as saying.

Some 11 million migrants are living in the U.S. without authorisation, according to estimates by the Department of Homeland Security.

Although Trump has directed much of his ire at undocumented migration, he sharply reduced legal immigration during his time in office.

Trump’s administration cut the number of green cards and immigrant visas by 418,453 and 11,178,668, respectively, according to an analysis by the libertarian Cato Institute, although most of the decline was due to restrictions introduced during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Star