The President says if you have $5 million to invest, you can obtain what he is calling a Gold Card Visa.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said the "Trump Gold Card" would replace EB-5 visas in two weeks. EB-5s were created by Congress in 1990 to generate foreign investment and are available to people who spend about $1 million on a company that employs at least 10 people.
Lutnick said the gold card — actually a green card, or permanent legal residency — would raise the price of admission for investors and do away with fraud and "nonsense" that he said characterizes the EB-5 program.
Trump has high hopes for success.
"If we sell a million, that's $5 trillion dollars," he said. Of the demand from the business community to participate, he said "I think we will sell a lot because I think there's really a thirst."
George Fishman is Senior Legal Fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies, who served for two years in the first Trump administration.
"A program granting legal permanent residence and then aliens who become legal permanent residents a few years later can become U.S. citizens. That is something only Congress can do."
Fishman says Trump's plan is all about decreasing the deficit.
"In which case it wouldn't be an investment with a commercial project in a hotel and ski resort getting something like that. But it would be a direct payment to the U.S. government of $5 million, and that would certainly be a much bigger financial contribution than what's current under the Investor Visa program set forth in the Immigration and Nationality Act. To create a new green card program would require an act of Congress."
But Trump says that while Congress determines qualifications for citizenship, "gold cards" would not require congressional approval.
Trump: China and Iran likely eligible
Pressed on if there would be restrictions on people from China or Iran not being allowed to participate, Trump suggested it will likely not "be restricted to much in terms of countries, but maybe in terms of individuals," The Associated Press reported.
About 8,000 people obtained investor visas in the 12-month period ending Sept. 30, 2022, according to the Homeland Security Department's most recent Yearbook of Immigration Statistics.
The Congressional Research Service reported in 2021 that EB-5 visas pose risks of fraud, including verification that funds were obtained legally. Then-President Joe Biden signed a 2022 law bringing big changes to the EB-5 program, including steps meant to investigate and sanction individuals or entities engaged in fraud as part of it — meant to curb some of those risks.
