A lot about the presidential election has changed in the last few weeks, but presidential candidate Donald Trump made news that can’t be ignored in June when he promised green cards to foreign nationals who graduate from American colleges and universities. That sounds good, but don’t get your hopes up.
When host Jason Calacanis asked him on the All In podcast to “promise us you will give us more ability to import the best and brightest around the world to America,” Trump said he would.
“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, and that includes junior colleges,” Trump answered.
We’ve written at length about the efforts of American universities to attract international students because they are good for schools and good for the American economy, and green cards that accompany graduation would certainly be a strong incentive for foreign nationals to attend schools in the U.S.
This promise was not universally welcomed though, particularly among his supporters animated by his hard line stand on immigration. One wrote on X, “Why would we make citizenship contingent on graduation from captured institutions where kids are taught to not only hate America + the West, but that there is a moral imperative to dismantle both? We need great talent to come here legally, but guaranteeing citizenship through completely captured institutions is not the way.”
Another wrote, “America has plenty of skilled workers who need better jobs. Americans come first,” and that is consistent with the former president’s thinking until he was asked the question on All In.
After it was learned that his Truth Social social media platform had filed an application for an H-1b visa for a potential employee, the company issued a statement that read, “The company has never hired — and has no plans to hire — an H-1B visa program worker. When current management learned of this application, which was made under prior management, it swiftly terminated the process in November 2022.”
He signed the Buy American and Hire American Executive Order on April 18, 2017, “which seeks to create higher wages and employment rates for U.S. workers and to protect their economic interests by rigorously enforcing and administering our immigration laws. It also directs DHS, in coordination with other agencies, to advance policies to help ensure H-1B visas are awarded to the most-skilled or highest-paid beneficiaries.” Behind the scenes, his administration worked to minimize the use of the H-1B, which has become a visa used to not only bring international talent to the United States companies, but to hire badly needed health care professionals and educators to rural hospitals and schools that have a hard time attracting qualified domestic talent.
The promise on All In was not only out of step with Trump’s stand on H-1B visas—which is the visa type that Calacanis described—but his own plans. As Patrick Thibodeaux at TechTarget.com wrote:
If Trump wins in November, there is reason to believe the administration will try again with a wage-based distribution system. Project 2025, an effort by a long list of conservative groups to set a blueprint for a Trump transition, recommends in its "Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise" that the H-1B program "be transformed into an elite program" to "bring in only the top foreign workers at the highest wages so as not to depress American opportunities."
His campaign staff gave us further reason to doubt that promise when, hours later, his campaign press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, added qualifications that he hadn’t mentioned, effectively repudiating the promise. Green cards wouldn’t automatically accompany a diploma because there would be an “aggressive vetting process,” and that they would look to root out “all communists, radical Islamists, Hamas supporters, America haters and public charges. She said the policy would apply only to the “most skilled graduates who can make significant contributions to America,” which is closer to his long-held vision for H-1B visa reform.
Finally, it seems finicky to point out that Trump can’t do what he promised through the executive branch. A change like that would have to be brought about through Congress, which is actually the real issue we face. As we have written a number of times, we need a Congress willing to deal with immigration reform.
Bottom line: Trump’s stated desire to tie green cards to graduation is a lovely thought, but it sounds more like a fleeting moment than a new core belief.
Photo by Sir Manuel on Unsplash.
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