Dem
51
GOP
49
We wrote two items this week about Joe Biden's executive order that makes it easier for some undocumented spouses/stepchildren of U.S. citizens to avoid deportation, and to acquire citizenship. The President has gotten a lot of positive response from the groups he was trying to reach with that maneuver.
And now, Biden has gotten a response from Donald Trump. No, not a rant on social media. Trump sat for a podcast interview, and shared his newfound interest in giving green cards to non-citizens who graduate from American universities:
But what I want to do, and what I will do is if 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. Anybody graduates from a college, you go in there for 2 years or 4 years, if you graduate, or you get a doctorate degree from a college, you should be able to stay in this country.
You can see what the thought process is. Trump wanted to outdo Biden, and needed to find a group of immigrants that is sympathetic and hasn't already been "taken" by Biden/Obama. College grads are ostensibly respectable, the U.S. has already invested resources in them, and American businesses need educated workers.
However, Trump doesn't think things through. And so, there are several things that clearly did not occur to him. First, in the past, he's been hostile to all immigrants, accusing them of "poisoning the blood of our country." While in office, he specifically targeted student visa programs as a problem area that he said was rife with abuses. Not to mention he just promised a massive deportation this past weekend. Second, the reason that Trump is hostile to immigrants is because his base is hostile to immigrants. That has not changed in the last 48 hours. Third, Trump's base also (largely) hates universities, seeing them as indoctrination centers and hotbeds of radical, anti-American sentiment. Fourth, business owners might want their jobs to go to well-educated people, but Trump's base (largely) wants jobs to go to Americans. Recall "Buy American, Hire American."
And so, there was a lot of blowback from right-wingers as soon as Trump's new policy proposal went public. And within hours, his campaign was walking back at least part of the promise, explaining that green cards wouldn't go to ALL foreign graduates, just those who have been acceptably vetted. Campaign press secretary Karoline Leavitt, just a couple of hours after the podcast was published, rushed to explain to reporters that "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. This would only apply to the most thoroughly vetted college graduates who would never undercut American wages or workers." Exactly how a future Trump administration would weed out communists (since most people are pretty good at pretending when their livelihood is on the line), and how they would make sure that these folks would never undercut American wages or workers, was not explained.
Needless to say, like most Trump proposals, this one isn't going to come to fruition, even if Trump is reelected. Indeed, it's about a 90% chance it will be forgotten within 2 weeks. We would make that 1 week, except that there's likely to be a question about it at the debate. The real story here is this: Biden's XOs on immigration have clearly helped him; Trump's response shows that the Trump campaign knows it. (Z)