U.S. Vice President JD Vance has reaffirmed the Trump administration's tough stance on immigration, stating that green card holders and some foreign students could face deportation if deemed not in the country's best interest.
Speaking to Fox News on Thursday, Vance emphasised that holding a green card does not guarantee permanent residency, adding that deportation numbers will rise as efforts to remove illegal migrants intensify.
He said, "A green card holder doesn't have an indefinite right to be in the United States.
"This is not fundamentally about free speech. Yes, it's about national security, but it's also more importantly, about who we, as an American public, decide gets to join our national community.
"And if the secretary of state and the president decide this person shouldn't be in America, and they have no legal right to stay here, it's as simple as that.
He further suggested that foreign students could be deported if deemed a threat to national interests. "I think we'll certainly see some people who get deported on student visas if we determine that it's not in the best interest of the United States to have them in our country," he stated.
Vance also criticised the high number of foreign students at elite U.S. universities, claiming they take up spots that could have gone to American students.
"A lot of these foreign students, most of them, pay full freight. So sometimes what you have at elite universities like Columbia or Harvard is a well-qualified middle-class American kid from the heartland who doesn't get a spot because some Chinese oligarch, who is paying $100,000 a year, takes up that spot," he argued.
