More recently, he has suggested that the rise in Chinese immigration requests is a sign that the Chinese government is building a small and poorly equipped military in the United States, which is easier than acknowledging that the country’s strong economy continues to attract immigrants. But in Thursday’s podcast discussion, Trump also proposed granting green card status to tens of thousands of military-age Chinese men.
He may not have known it.
“What I wanted to do, and what I’m going to do, is if you graduate from college, you automatically get a green card as part of your diploma so you can stay in this country,” Trump said on the “All In” podcast. The idea applies to anyone who graduates from a two-year or four-year college, he added.
This is not typical Trump rhetoric, to say the least — in fact, as the Washington Post’s original report noted, it was a proposal put forward by Trump’s opponent in the 2016 presidential election.
As you might expect, the government has kept data on the number of international students enrolled in American universities for many years, and the numbers have increased dramatically over time.
For example, in the 1980-1981 academic year, there were about 312,000 foreign students enrolled in American universities. Of these, about 56 percent were from Asia, and a quarter were from North America (mainly Canada and Mexico) or Africa.
Forty-four years later, many of these students are not from countries that most people would first think of. More than a quarter of them were from Iran, a direct result of the Iranian revolution. (Social unrest is a trigger for immigration; it’s worth remembering this in the broader discussion of immigration.) In the 1980-1981 academic year, there were 17 students from Iran for every one from China.
The latest data shows that students from Asia now make up the majority of the international student population, which comes as no surprise, as 36% of the world’s population lives in China or India.
(The graph below uses the same scale as the graph for the 1980-1981 school year; data for that year is shown as a dashed circle.)
More than half of the international students will come from these two countries in the 2022-2023 academic year. Currently, there are 27 students from China for every one student from Iran.
More than one million foreign students were studying at U.S. universities last year, more than triple the number in 1980. The government currently issues green cards to about one million people each year, but Mr. Trump’s proposal could increase that number by 25 percent.
The idea of giving these students green cards is simple: why would the US not try to keep people who travel to the US to hone their skills? The US has benefited, and will continue to benefit, from some of the world’s most talented people willing to immigrate to the US. Trump’s proposal would make that process easier.
But that idea is hard to reconcile with Trump’s other rhetoric about immigration, the rhetoric that underpins his political support. There is little reason to think that Trump would actually implement this policy: It was never mentioned in his sporadic campaign agendas, and he has an obvious habit of making things up on the spot.
He also has a stronger campaign base around him, which mobilized quickly after his comments were made public.
In a statement to The Washington Post, campaign spokeswoman Carolyn Leavitt said graduates will be screened for “communists, Islamic extremists, Hamas sympathizers, America-haters and public servants.” She said the policy will only apply to “graduates from the most thoroughly vetted colleges who will never undercut American wages or workers.” How they define “America-haters” or how they will ensure immigrants “will never undercut American wages” is unclear, to say the least.
This is the fundamental contradiction in Trump’s immigration rhetoric. Trump wants only certain kinds of immigrants to come to the United States, while recognizing that some immigrants bring some value. Trump’s rhetoric often ignores that distinction, and what Trump sees as value is often different from what is objectively valuable. While Trump acknowledges that some immigrants are good immigrants, his platform requires him not to spend too much time identifying which immigrants are good immigrants, and so he generally avoids doing so.
As a result, military-age men from China who try to migrate to the United States across the Mexican border are framed as dangerous members of a traitorous fifth column, even if they arrive as refugees fleeing the Chinese government. But what about military-age men from China attending American universities? They should have preferential immigration status, even if the Chinese government is helping to further their education.
Solving this problem doesn’t require anything more complicated than figuring out which immigrants hate America. It’s that simple.
