Donald Trump proposes handing out green cards to millions of migrants

Donald Trump said he would offer a green card to anyone who graduates from a U.S. college to keep the most “brilliant people” in the country.

The former president, who is all but officially the Republican Party’s nominee in November’s election, made the comments on the All-In Podcast, which covers “all things economic, tech, political, social and poker.”

One of the podcast’s hosts raised the topic of skilled workers, saying: “Every time we get somebody superintelligent—from India or Europe, any country … that’s a loss for our adversaries and our competitors, and it’s a gain for us.

“But I’ve never heard you talk about this. Can you please promise us that you will give us more ability to import the best and brightest around the world to America?”

Trump answered, “I do promise, but I happen to agree.” The former president went on to say: “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. And that includes junior colleges, too.”

Trump continued: “I know of stories where people graduated from a top college, or from a college, and they desperately wanted to stay here—they had a plan for a company, a concept. And they go back to India, they go back to China, they do the same basic company in those places, and they become multibillionaires who employ thousands and thousands of people, and it could have been done here.

“And a bigger example is, you need a pool of people to work for your companies—you have great companies—and they have to be smart people. Not everybody can be less than smart. You need brilliant people.”

“The people that graduate from college, the people that are No. 1 in their class at the best colleges, you have to be able to recruit these people,” the former president said.

“Somebody graduates at the top of the class, they can’t even make a deal with a company because they don’t think they’re going to be able to stay in the country,” Trump added. “That is going to end on day one.”

Without knowing the details of this hypothetical policy, it is impossible to estimate how many people would qualify for a green card under such a program.

But to get a broad idea, in 2022, there were 5.8 million immigrant-origin students enrolled in higher education in the U.S., representing 32 percent of all students, the Higher Ed Immigration Portal reported.

Many of those students are foreign-born legal residents who already have the right to live in the U.S., but those using temporary measures, such as student visas, would benefit from a green card after graduating.

U.S. Tech Workers, a nonprofit that advocates “on behalf of American workers harmed by employment visa programs,” said on social media that the idea “isn’t America first.”

The organization posted on X, formally Twitter: “Stapling a Green Card to a college diploma would incentivize universities to turn into de facto immigration centers—a problem both Canada and the UK are currently dealing with which has only led to voter backlash against immigration. It’s a terrible policy.”

Other users agreed with Trump’s idea, with the conservative account @mioficialcuenta writing: “I have always said that we need far-reaching immigration reform, both to stop illegal entries, which pose enormous dangers to our country, and to provide opportunities for well-educated, motivated, and healthy foreigners who want to assimilate here to help make our country even better.”