US Vice President JD Vance on Thursday said that a green card doesn’t guarantee immigrants the right to stay in the US forever.
A green card, officially called a Permanent Resident Card, lets foreign nationals live and work in the country. But despite the name, "permanent residency" doesn’t necessarily mean lifelong security.
"A green card holder doesn't have an indefinite right to be in the United States," JD Vance said in an interview with 'The Ingraham Angle' host Laura Ingraham on Fox News.
“This is not fundamentally about free speech, and to me, yes, it’s about national security, but it’s also more importantly about who do we as an American public decide gets to join our national community,” Vance said.
“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 added.
Vance's statement comes in response to the arrest of Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil, a green card holder, who was detained on Saturday for his role in protests against the Israel-Hamas war at Columbia University last spring.
The Donald Trump administration has moved to revoke Mahmoud Khalil's green card, accusing him of leading "activities aligned with Hamas," the militant group whose October 7, 2023 attack triggered the war.