President Donald Trump announced his administration would start selling so-called gold-card visas for $5 million each, in the next two weeks.
“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,” Trump said on Feb. 25.
“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, and never been done before anything like this.”
Lutnick described the EB-5 as being “full of nonsense, make-believe, and fraud,” getting a green card at a very low price.
“They'll have to go through vetting, of course,” Lutnick said. “We’re going to make sure they’re wonderful, world-class global citizens. They can come to America, the president can give them a green card, and they can invest in America, and we can use that money to reduce our deficit.”
Trump noted that the United States is $35 trillion in debt, and if the country sold 10 million gold cards, that would mean a total of $50 trillion.
Along with seeing this as an opportunity to draw affluent immigrants to the country who are going to create jobs, the president also expects American companies like Apple to pay the $5 million to ensure certain people can work for them.
“They’re not citizens, but they‘ll have to pay if they create jobs in the United States. They’ll pay full taxes like everybody else,” Trump said of the would-be gold card holders. ”So you’re getting big taxpayers, big job producers, and we’ll be able to sell maybe a million of these cards, maybe more than that.”
Trump assured members of the press that the gold card was “totally legal to do.” He didn’t say if the administration would limit the number of immigrants who can gain entry by purchasing a gold card, suggesting that the number of cards sold could be in the millions.
When asked by a reporter if a Russian oligarch could qualify for a gold card, Trump said it was possible, remarking that he knew some who “are very nice people.”
“It’s possible they’re not quite as wealthy as they’re not as wealthy as they used to be,” he said with a laugh, joking about the financial toll the war with Ukraine has cost globally. ”I think they could. I think they could afford $5 million.”
Trump and Lutnick both criticized the idea of green card lotteries, and said this form of access to the country brings financial benefits.
“Why do we give out lotteries of green cards?” Lutnick asked. ”Why do we give out EB-5 for green cards? President [Trump] understands that the right answer is, why don’t we eliminate the deficit of the United States of America instead.”
