WASHINGTON — Former President Donald Trump suggested in a podcast released Thursday that noncitizens in the U.S. should "automatically" get green cards when they graduate from college.
"What I want to do and what I will do is you graduate from a college, I think you should get automatically as part of your diploma, a green card to be able to stay in this country," Trump said. "And that includes junior colleges, too."
Trump made similar comments during his 2016 campaign, only to limit legal migration when he was in office.
Trump was responding on the podcast to a comment from one of its hosts, who said, "We need high-skilled workers in this country." Another chimed in, noting that three of the four hosts are immigrants.
"Can you please promise us you will give us more ability to import the best and brightest around the world to America?" a host asked, prompting Trump's green card response.
Trump said he did promise that, adding that it was "so sad when we lose people from Harvard, MIT, from the greatest schools, and lesser schools that are phenomenal schools, also."
In a statement Friday morning, Trump campaign national press secretary Karoline Leavitt said that the former president's proposal would apply to "the most skilled graduates" who are "the most thoroughly vetted."
“President Trump has outlined the most aggressive vetting process in U.S. history, to exclude all communists, radical Islamists, Hamas supporters, America haters and public charges," Leavitt said. "He believes, only after such vetting has taken place, we ought to keep the most skilled graduates who can make significant contributions to America. This would only apply to the most thoroughly vetted college graduates who would never undercut American wages or workers.”
Earlier in the podcast appearance, Trump had repeated his frequent unfounded claim that migrants crossing the southern border into the U.S. are coming from jails, prisons, mental institutions and insane asylums. He also asserted without evidence that "we have terrorists coming into our country at a level that we've never seen before."
At a 2016 Republican primary debate, Trump said that "we need highly skilled people in this country" when he was asked about visas for highly skilled workers.
"They’ll go to Harvard. They’ll go to Stanford. They’ll go to Wharton. As soon as they’re finished, they get shoved out," Trump said in March 2016. "They want to stay in this country. They want to stay here desperately. They’re not able to stay here. For that purpose, we absolutely have to be able to keep the brainpower in this country."
However, visa denials and extensions increased during Trump’s time in the Oval Office, making it more difficult for some noncitizen workers to stay in the U.S.
In 2019, Trump laid out a merit-based legal immigration system to prioritize highly skilled migrants. But in 2020, he also signed an executive order that froze new visas for foreign workers.
In a statement, Biden campaign spokesperson Kevin Munoz said that Trump "made it his mission to rip apart immigrant families for his own political gain."
"Trump’s empty promise is both a lie and an insult, especially to the countless people that have been permanently damaged by his first-term in office," Munoz said.
Now campaigning for another term, Trump often makes anti-migrant rhetoric a centerpiece of his campaign speeches.
Trump has compared migrants to Hannibal Lecter from the movie "The Silence of the Lambs." He has asserted that migrants coming to the U.S. are "poisoning the blood of our country," rhetoric the Biden campaign has compared to Adolf Hitler's. Last month, he asserted without evidence that migrants are bringing "very contagious disease."
