US News

Mike: US must keep immigrads

PALO ALTO, Calif. — Mayor Bloomberg used his platform as Stanford University’s commencement speaker yesterday to lobby for an immigration-reform plan that allows foreign students to remain in the country after they graduate.

Standing in a packed Stanford Stadium, Bloomberg noted that about 30 percent of the university’s 5,000 graduates had attended Stanford on student visas, but that many of them — without a way to work legally here — would soon return to home to compete with Americans.

“We invite foreign students to study here, we subsidize the universities they attend . . . with research funding and other aid, and then, after those students have mastered the material, we tell them to go somewhere else,” the mayor said.

“It’s the most backward economic policy you could possibly come up with, and I’ve called it national suicide.”

Instead of letting such talent get away, Bloomberg said, every foreign student who has studied science, technology, math or engineering “should have a green card stapled to his or her diploma so they can help our economy grow.”

He added that US residents who came to the country illegally as children “should have the opportunity to apply for financial aid and go to college.”

Bloomberg urged the audience to contact their representatives and senators about the immigration bill now under consideration by Congress.