WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump mentioned Wednesday that he plans to begin promoting a “gold card” visa with a possible pathway to U.S. citizenship for $5 million, searching for to have that new initiative exchange a 35-year-old visa program for buyers.
“I happen to think it’ll sell like crazy. It’s a market,” Trump mentioned. “But we’ll know very soon.”
Through the first assembly of his second-term Cupboard, Trump prompt that the brand new income generated from this system might be used to repay the nation’s debt.
“If we sell a million, that’s $5 trillion dollars,” he mentioned. Of the demand from the enterprise neighborhood to take part, he mentioned “I think we will sell a lot because I think there’s really a thirst.”
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick advised reporters throughout the identical assembly that Trump’s initiative would exchange the EB-5 program, which affords U.S. visas to buyers who spent about $1 million on an organization that employs a minimum of 10 individuals.
Lutnick mentioned that program “has been around for many years for investment in projects” however “it was poorly overseen, poorly executed.”
The brand new program might mark a dramatic shift in U.S. immigration coverage however isn’t unprecedented elsewhere. International locations in Europe and elsewhere supply what have turn into often known as “golden visas” that enable individuals to pay with the intention to safe immigration standing in fascinating locations.
Congress, in the meantime, determines {qualifications} U.S. for citizenship, however the president mentioned “gold cards” wouldn’t require congressional approval.
Trump mentioned of future doable recipients of the gold visa program: “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.”
Henley & Companions, an advisory agency, says greater than 100 international locations all over the world supply “golden visas” to rich people and buyers. That record contains the USA, United Kingdom, Spain, Greece, Malta, Australia, Canada and Italy.
“Companies can buy gold cards and, in exchange, get those visas to hire new employees,” Trump mentioned. Regardless of comparable applications already occurring exterior the U.S., he insisted, “No other country can do this because people don’t want to go to other countries. They want to come here.”
“Everybody wants to come here, especially since Nov. 5,” he mentioned of his Election Day victory final fall.
Lutnick prompt that the gold card — which might really work, a minimum of to begin, extra like a inexperienced card, or everlasting authorized residency — would increase the value of admission for buyers and eliminate fraud and “nonsense” that he mentioned characterize the EB-5 program.
A pathway to citizenship as a part of the brand new program additionally would set it other than the EB-5 program. Trump mentioned vetting individuals who is perhaps eligible for the gold card will “go through a process” that’s nonetheless being labored out.
Pressed on if there can be restrictions on individuals from China or Iran not being allowed to take part, Trump prompt it is going to probably not “be restricted to much in terms of countries, but maybe in terms of individuals.”
About 8,000 individuals obtained investor visas within the 12-month interval ending Sept. 30, 2022, in accordance with the Homeland Safety Division’s most up-to-date Yearbook of Immigration Statistics. The Congressional Analysis Service reported in 2021 that EB-5 visas pose dangers of fraud, together with verification that funds had been obtained legally.
Trump made no point out of the necessities for job creation. And, whereas the variety of EB-5 visas is capped, the Republican president mused that the federal authorities might promote 10 million “gold cards” to scale back the deficit. He mentioned it “could be great, maybe it will be fantastic.”
“It’s somewhat like a green card, but at a higher level of sophistication,” the president mentioned. “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.”