Donald Trump said the American government should “automatically” grant permanent residency to foreigners with higher education in the United States, as immigration emerges as a major issue in the presidential campaign.
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“You should automatically get – as part of your degree – a green card to be able to stay in this country,” the ex-president said in an interview with the podcast All-In, published Thursday. The green card is the name given to the title of permanent residence in the United States.
The Republican candidate for the November presidential election was questioned about immigration restrictions which, according to the interviewer, limit the competitiveness of the United States and their “capacity to import the best and smartest into America.”
Donald Trump said he “knows stories of people who graduated from a great university (…) and who desperately want to stay here.”
“They had a business plan, a concept, and they can’t – they go back to India, to China, and they do the same business in these countries and become multi-billionaires, employing thousands and thousands of people. And it could have been done here,” he said.
Trump, seen from behind…
Getty Images via AFP
The Republican’s statements, going against the grain of his usually restrictive positions on immigration, come a few days after the announcement by his Democratic rival of a similar measure.
Joe Biden said on Tuesday he wanted to speed up the work visa procedure for certain immigrants who have obtained a higher education degree in the United States and have received a job offer in the country.
He also announced regularization measures that could benefit hundreds of thousands of people.
“We can both secure the border (with Mexico) and provide legal avenues for immigration,” said the current US president.
Candidate for a second term, Joe Biden is trying both to respond to accusations of laxity from the right and to remain faithful to his campaign promises of a more “humane” immigration system.
Biden, seen from the front…
AFP
The Democrat took the opportunity on Tuesday to criticize his predecessor, considering it “scandalous” to say, as the billionaire did, that migrants were “animals” who “poison the blood” of the country.
Donald Trump’s campaign team, which promises mass expulsions in the event of victory, for its part, assured that Joe Biden’s measures would “without a doubt fuel migrant crime”.
