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US President Donald Trump has announced a new citizenship plan that would allow foreigners to acquire US citizenship through "gold cards," priced at approximately $5 million. During a press conference in the Oval Office on February 25, Trump said these cards would grant foreigners residency status and a pathway to US citizenship. While making the announcement, he remarked:
“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 and that’s going to give you green card privileges, plus it’s going to be a route to citizenship. And wealthy people will be coming into our country by buying this card.”
He said that details of the new gold card program will be released in two weeks.
Trump further asserted that although Congress typically establishes citizenship requirements, the gold cards would not require congressional approval. According to Trump's announcement, the scheme will replace the EB-5 visa program, which mandates that foreign nationals invest in US enterprises that create 10 or more jobs per investment.
Trump’s ‘Gold Card,’ replacing the EB-5 visa, is expected to reduce fraud related to immigration
Trump claims that selling 10 million "gold cards" may help reduce the national deficit despite the limited number of EB-5 visas. The 'Trump Gold Card,' as it has been called, will replace the EB-5 visas in the coming weeks, according to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick.
“They’ll have to go through vetting, of course, to make sure they’re wonderful world-class global citizens,” Lutnick added.
When a journalist asked whether Russian oligarchs would qualify for the program, Trump responded:
"Yeah, possibly. Hey. I know some Russian oligarchs that are very nice people.”
The US President further said that the new gold card intends to tackle these issues by increasing the investment threshold and eliminating fraud, which has been a concern with the EB-5 program.
Talking about the prospect of the visa and the probable investors, Trump said in the Oval Office:
“They’ll be wealthy and they’ll be successful, and they’ll be spending a lot of money and paying a lot of taxes and employing a lot of people, and we think it’s going to be extremely successful.”
The US President said the move "could be great, maybe it will be fantastic.” He continued:
“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.”
Trump did not specify the job creation requirements for the new visa. He only stated that the visa would be available to “wealthy individuals" and did not identify any specific group of people who would be excluded from the new program.
According to the Department of Homeland Security, approximately 8,000 people received investor visas in the 12-month period ending September 30, 2022.
The recent announcement comes as EB-5 visas are associated with fraud risks, including the necessity of verifying that funds were acquired lawfully. The Congressional Research Service made a similar announcement four years ago, in 2021.
