Trump teases new 'road toward citizenship’ in ‘near future’
President Trump on Friday teased a pending announcement about a new pathway to citizenship in the U.S., telling reporters it’s too soon to give out more information.
The president was pressed on the administration’s decision to revoke Harvard University’s certification to admit foreign students. When a reporter noted that many top CEOs are foreign-born, Trump replied, “I’m fine with that."
“We’re actually going to be doing something in the near future that’s going to make it possible for people to come into this country and come in and, you know, have a road toward citizenship, and I think it will be very exciting, but it’s too soon to speak of,” he said from the Oval Office, where he was signing executive orders related to nuclear energy.
Trump also responded, “I do,” when asked why the U.S. wouldn’t want the best and the brightest studying at U.S. colleagues.
“We don’t want troublemakers here,” he said.
Harvard is suing the Trump administration after Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem ordered Harvard be taken off the Student and Exchange Visitor Program certification, claiming the administration’s actions violate the First Amendment, constitutional due process and the DHS’s regulations.
The order effectively bans Harvard from enrolling new international students and forces current ones, who make up roughly a quarter of the school’s student population, to transfer.
Trump earlier this year announced in the Oval Office the revenue-generating $5 million “gold card” immigrant visa to replace the existing EB-5 visa program. It will still require vetting but will come with a higher price tag.
The Trump administration also recently started accepting white South Africans as part of the prioritization of the Afrikaner refugee resettlement program. South African President Cyril Ramaphosa met with Trump at the White House on Wednesday for a meeting that took a turn when Trump showed a video to argue that white farmers are being persecuted in the country.