Indians studying in American educational institutions should not be kicked out as the country needs smart people like them, Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump has said as he sought to set the record straight about his immigration policies.
His statement comes when the caucuses entered a decisive phase on Tuesday with a five-state vote as Trump looked to seal party nomination while Democrat Hillary Clinton faced stiff challenge from her rival Bernie Sanders.
“Whether we like that or not, they pay, et cetera, et cetera but we educate a lot of people, very smart people. We need those people in the country,” Trump, 69, told Fox News in an interview when asked about his views on legal immigration.
“They cannot come into the country. You know, they go to Harvard, they are first in their class and they’re from India they go back to India and they setup companies and they make a fortune and they employ lots of people and all of that,” he said.
“Many people want to stay in this country and then want to do that. I think somebody that goes through years of college in this country we shouldn’t kick them out the day they graduate, which we do,” Trump said clarifying his position on certain aspect of H-1B visas.
Trump has been widely accused of having an “all or nothing” stance when it comes to immigrants. There are about the roughly 11 million undocumented immigrants in the United States.
He has been advocating the scrapping of the H-1B visa programme from the beginning of his campaign as he thinks it is “very unfair” for American workers and has been taking away their jobs.
Meanwhile, voting was underway as five delegate-rich states - Florida, Illinois, Missouri, North Carolina and Ohio - hold their Republican and Democratic primaries.
A big win for Trump, 69, as latest polls indicate, could very well bring the billionaire real estate magnate very closer to the magical figure of 1,237 delegates needed to win the party’s presidential nomination for the November 8 election.
For Republicans dead set on stopping Trump, ‘Super Tuesday 2.0’ represents a final chance to seriously impede his path to the party’s presidential nomination.
Raising the stakes on the Republican side is that Florida, with its 99 delegates and Ohio, which awards 66 delegates, are winner-take-all contests.
That means for the two home-state candidates, Ohio Governor John Kasich and Florida Senator Marco Rubio, anything short of wins in their own backyards could leave them so far behind in the delegate count that they would face intense pressure to end their campaigns.