Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump promised to grant automatic green cards to foreign students who graduate from US colleges. In the podcast, Trump said the move was necessary to prevent talented students from returning to their home countries like India and China, where they become billionaires.

This is a kind of counterattack to Donald Trump, who has had a strong anti-immigrant stance, ahead of the elections in November.

Immigration is a major election issue in the US. A recent survey conducted by the Pew Research Center showed that 59% of registered US voters wanted immigrants to be granted citizenship.

Trump said in the ‘All-In’ podcast, “What I want to do and what I will do is when you graduate from college, I think you should automatically get a green card as part of your diploma, a green card to stay in this country. And that includes junior colleges.”

Former US President Trump talked about stories where people graduated from a top college or colleges, and they wanted to stay here, they had a plan for a company, a concept, and they couldn’t – they went back to India, they went back to China, they do the same basic company in those places”,

“…and they become multi-billionaires by employing thousands and thousands of people, and this could have been done here too,” Trump said.

According to a PTI report, the podcast was hosted by four venture capitalists: Chamath Palihapitiya, Jason Calacanis, David Sacks and David Friedberg, three of whom are immigrants.

“Let me just tell you, it’s very sad when we lose people from Harvard, MIT, the greatest schools and smaller schools that are also phenomenal schools. And what I wanted to do, and I would have done it, but then we had to deal with the COVID problem because it came and, you know, took over for a while, as you probably know, “Trump said in response.

In 2023, US issues record over 1,40,000 visas to Indian studentsThere is a bigger crowd this year.

US Embassy in India Preparations to handle the significant increase in student visa applications from Indian students In view of the increase in student applications from India, the Embassy has started interviews earlier than usual.

The Green Card, officially known as the Permanent Resident Card, is a document issued by the US government granting the holder permanent resident status.

Donald Trump has largely been a supporter of a merit-based citizenship policy.

In the podcast he reiterated his first term policy of allowing foreign students to receive a green card after obtaining a degree from a higher education institution in a STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) field.

“Anybody graduates from college, you go there for two years or four years. If you graduate, or you get a doctorate degree from college, you should be able to stay in this country,” Trump said.

“They said, “We put a lot of pressure on talented people, people who graduate from college, people who are number one in their class from the best colleges, you have to be able to recruit these people and retain these people.”

A person graduates at the top of his class; but he cannot even strike a deal with a company because he does not think he will be able to stay in the country.

“Trump declared, “It will be over on the first day itself.”

More than one million international students from over 210 origins are studying at US higher education institutions during the 2022-23 academic year, according to the latest annual Open Doors Report from the Institute of International Education.

During his tenure as president, Trump’s immigration agenda included restrictions on green cards, visa programs, refugee resettlement, and other forms of legal immigration, significantly reducing the number of lawful permanent residents entering the country.

Throughout his presidency, Trump criticized the H-1B visa program, which technology companies favored as a way to hire foreign skilled workers, and called for it to be scrapped. “Theft of American prosperity” told.

The H-1B visa is a non-immigrant visa that allows US companies to employ foreign workers in specialty occupations that require theoretical or technical expertise. Technology companies rely on it to hire thousands of employees every year from countries such as India and China.

Trump expanded restrictions on legal immigration during the pandemic and in the final year of his term and proposed suspending all immigration to the United States and deporting foreign students if they did not attend at least some classes in person. A month before the 2020 election, Trump again moved to restrict the H-1B visa program.

Therefore, this change will raise the hopes of thousands of Indian students who are pursuing or planning to pursue graduate degrees from US colleges.