The Republican president, who has made the deportation of millions of undocumented migrants a priority of his second term, said the new card would be a route to highly prized US citizenship [GETTY]
US President Donald Trump unveiled plans Tuesday to sell new “gold card” residency permits for $5 million each, replacing a 35-year-old visa for investors.
Trump said sales of the new visa, a high-price version of the traditional green card, would bring in job creators and could be used to reduce the US national deficit.
“We’re going to be selling a gold card. You have a green card, this is a gold card. We’re going to be putting a price on that card of about $5 million,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.
The visa mirrors the UAE’s “Golden visa“, a long-term residence visa that allows expats to live, work or study in the country with exclusive benefits.
The Republican president, who has made the deportation of millions of undocumented migrants a priority of his second term, said the new card would be a route to highly prized US citizenship.
“A lot of people are going to want to be in this country, and they’ll be able to work and provide jobs and build companies,” Trump said. “It’ll be people with money.”
Sales of the cards would start in about two weeks, Trump added.
“We’ll be able to sell maybe a million of these cards. We have it all worked out from a legal standpoint,” Trump added.
The billionaire former real estate tycoon said that all applicants for the new gold cards would be carefully vetted.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said the “Trump Gold Card” would replace EB-5 visas in two weeks. Congress created EB-5s in 1990 to generate foreign investment. They are available to people who spend about $1 million on a company that employs at least 10 people.
Lutnick said the gold card, which is actually a green card or permanent legal residency, would raise the price of admission for investors and eliminate the fraud and “nonsense” that characterise the EB-5 program. Like other green cards, it would include a path to citizenship.
Trump made no mention of the requirements for job creation. And, while the number of EB-5 visas is capped, Trump mused that the federal government could sell 10 million “gold cards” to reduce the deficit. He said it “could be great, maybe it will be fantastic.”
“It’s somewhat like a green card, but at a higher level of sophistication, it’s a road to citizenship for people, and essentially people of wealth or people of great talent, where people of wealth pay for those people of talent to get in, meaning companies will pay for people to get in and to have long, long term status in the country,” he said.
Congress determines qualifications for citizenship, but Trump said “gold cards” would not require congressional approval.
But asked if wealthy Russians could also apply, Trump said it was a possibility.
“Possibly. I know some Russian oligarchs that are very nice people. It’s possible,” Trump said. “They’re not as wealthy as they used to be. I think they can. I think they can afford $5 million.”
A number of Russian oligarchs have been hit by western sanctions since Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine three years ago.
Lutnick, standing at Trump’s side in the Oval Office, said of the gold cards that “we can use that money to reduce our deficit.”
Trump, who has branded hotels and casinos in his long business career, even suggested that the new cards could be named after him.
“Somebody said, ‘Can we call it the Trump gold card?’ I said, ‘If it helps, use the name Trump,'” he said.
