On Wednesday, President Donald Trump declared that his long-promised “gold card,” which would grant legal status and eventually a route to U.S. citizenship to individuals for $1 million and corporations for twice that amount per foreign-born employee, was officially going on sale.
As Trump announced the program’s launch in front of business executives in the Roosevelt Room of the White House, an application website went live.
It is intended to take the place of EB-5 visas, which Congress established in 1990 to attract foreign investment and were granted to individuals who invested around $1 million in a business with ten or more employees.
Trump sees the new version that will help the United States draw and keep top talent while also bringing in money for the federal government. He has been pushing the gold card program for months.
He first proposed that each card would cost $5 million, but more recently, he changed it to $1 million and $2 million.
The president expected that billions would pour into a Treasury Department account “where we can do things positive for the country” and said that all program payments would “go to the U.S. government.”
The new program, which essentially offers permanent legal residency with the possibility of citizenship, is a green card.
Trump described it as “basically a green card but much better.” “A much stronger path, much more powerful.”
The president did not address the program’s overall caps, which are in place under the present EB-5 program, or the conditions for job creation for submitting firms.
Rather, he claimed to have heard grievances from corporate executives who had been unable to hire exceptional graduates from American institutions due to their foreign nationality and lack of immigration permits.
Trump stated, “You can’t hire people from the best colleges because you don’t know whether or not you can keep the person.”
Trump’s political career has been centered on enforcing strict immigration laws and tightening border controls between the United States and Mexico.
During the first ten or more months of his second administration, widespread immigration crackdowns and mass deportation campaigns were launched, targeting places like Charlotte and Los Angeles.
However, he has also come under fire from prominent figures in his “Make America Great Again” campaign for his repeated advocacy of allowing skilled immigrants to enter the country, something that the gold card program may make possible.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said the program will provide $15,000 for candidate screening, and the rigors background check procedure will “make sure these people absolutely qualify to be in America.”
According to him, businesses will be allowed to obtain more than one card, but only one person per card.
Lutnick added that Trump wanted to change the fact that existing green card holders make less money than the typical American.
Lutnick remarked, “So, same visas, but now just full of the best people.”
Investor visas are widely available worldwide, with dozens of nations—including the UK, Spain, Greece, Malta, Australia, Canada, and Italy—offering “golden visas” to affluent people.
The program, according to Trump, implies that the United States is “getting somebody great coming into our country because we think these will be some tremendous people.”
He specifically mentioned top American college graduates from China, India, and France as potential recipients of gold cards.
He declared, “The companies are going to be very happy.”
