The new route would offer a fast-track to US citizenship
The president has revealed plans to sell $5,000,000 ‘Gold Card’ visas to migrants.
Donald Trump is reportedly considering a bold new immigration proposal: a ‘gold card’ visa that would give wealthy immigrants a fast track to working—and potentially even gaining citizenship—in the United States.
But this luxury visa comes with a hefty price tag: $5 million per applicant. The plan would replace the current EB-5 visa route and would be exclusively available to vetted millionaire migrants.
In a recent Oval Office briefing on February 25, Trump shared his vision, saying, “We’re going to be selling a gold card. You have a green card. This is a gold card.”
Trump further explained that the gold card would offer an upgraded version of the green card, granting privileges beyond the standard ones, and he hinted that it would be ready for launch in just two weeks.
The 78-year-old president emphasized that this visa would provide a unique “route to citizenship,” one that had “never been done before.” He elaborated: “They’ll be wealthy, they’ll be successful, they’ll be spending a lot of money, paying a lot of taxes, and employing a lot of people. We believe this will be extremely successful.”
US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick dubbed the new plan the “Trump gold card” and strongly criticized the existing EB-5 visa program as “full of nonsense and make-believe fraud.” While the EB-5 visa costs about $20,000, it requires foreign investors to put up around a million dollars in a US business.
“We’re going to end the EB-5 program and replace it with the Trump gold card,” Trump declared.
Lutnick added that the gold card would be reserved for “wonderful world-class global citizens,” and the revenue from the program would be used to help reduce the federal deficit.
The White House team is optimistic that the gold card program could generate a staggering $55 trillion in revenue while enticing affluent foreign investors to the United States. Trump noted: “You’re bringing in big taxpayers, big job producers, and we could sell a million of these cards, maybe more. It could be great, maybe even fantastic.”
The president also boldly claimed that the program could bypass Congressional approval.
“We don’t need Congress… It’s a path to citizenship, a very strong path to citizenship, but we’re not doing citizenship. For that, I’d have to get Congress involved,” Trump explained.
The gold card would be available to foreign investors globally, which means even Russian businesspeople and oligarchs could apply—provided they can meet the $5 million fee. “I know some Russian oligarchs who are very nice people,” Trump said. “They’re not as wealthy as they used to be.”
