On Wednesday, US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick established a new timelines relating to the launch of Trump’s ‘gold card’ website. Serving as a replacement for the existing EB-5 immigrant investor scheme, the US president’s new program will allow wealthy foreigners to seek for permanent residency in exchange for a $5 million investment.
While at Axios’ “Building the Future” event in Washingon, Lutnick laid out the plans of a website dedicated to the new US visa program being launched within a week. “I expect there will be a website up called ‘Trump card dot gov’ in about a week. The details of that will come soon after, but people can start to register,” the commerce secretary said, as per CNN.
Trump gold card visa: A solution to national debt
Speaking to Axios’ Mike Allen, Lutnick doubled down on President Donald Trump’s claims of the $5 million gold card visa program presenting itself as a remedy to national debt. “This is for people who can help America pay off its debt. Why wouldn’t you want a Plan B that says. God forbid something bad happens, you come to the airport in America and the person in immigration says, ‘Welcome home’,” he said.
The current EB-immigrant program offered applicants provision to secure green card for a much smaller investment in the US economy. The existing scheme required applicants to pay between $100,000 and $200,000 as fees to the United States Citizenship and Immigrants Service (USCIS). On top of that, the investment amount would range between $800,000 and $1 million, creating at least 10 jobs for American workers.
“It’s going to be a route to citizenship, and wealthy people will be coming into our country by buying this card. They will be wealthy, they will be successful, they will be spending a lot of money and paying a lot of taxes,” the POTUS previously said of the Trump card.
The Republican leader has since even suggested selling 1 million of these gold visa cards to fund America’s mounting debt obligations. With officials now viewing the Trump gold card as a safety net, Lutnick disclosed that the TrumpCard.gov website’s initial run would allow people to register their interest in buying a card. “All that will come over a matter of the next weeks — not month, weeks,” he added.
With the US government counting on wealthy foreigners to bring businesses and opportunity to America, the commerce secretary noted, “If there are 200,000 people who play, that’s a trillion dollars. That pays for everything.”
Republicans, Democrats against Trump gold card visa program
Countering the positive global interest in the gold card scheme, Republican Sen Rand Paul pointed out in March that Trump’s visa initiative would “probably” require congressional authorisation. He also argued against the Trump gold card program replacing the EB-5 scheme.
“I don’t think it should replace the EB-5 because I think there are a lot of people who come to this country with the EB-5 level that might not come at the $5 million level,” he told Roll Call months ago.
Similarly, Indian-origin Rep Ro Khanna (Democrat) told Newsweek that $5 million weren’t a mandatory need to build a “successful company in America.” Citing real-life examples of ex-Alphabet president Sergey Brin, Google’s Sundar Pichai and Microsoft’s Satya Nadella, he weighed in, “We should welcome talented workers to America who will bring their creativity and productivity while also reforming the H1-B program to prevent abuses.”