WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump said Wednesday that he plans to start selling a \u201cgold card\u201d visa with a potential pathway to US citizenship for $5 million, seeking to have that new initiative replace a 35-year-old visa program for investors.
\n\u201cI happen to think it\u2019ll sell like crazy. It\u2019s a market,\u201d Trump said. \u201cBut we\u2019ll know very soon.\u201d
\nDuring the first meeting of his second-term Cabinet, Trump suggested that the new revenue generated from the program could be used to pay off the country\u2019s debt.
\n\u201cIf we sell a million, that\u2019s $5 trillion dollars,\u201d he said. Of the demand from the business community to participate, he said \u201cI think we will sell a lot because I think there\u2019s really a thirst.\u201d
\nCommerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told reporters during the same meeting that Trump\u2019s initiative would replace the EB-5 program, which offers US visas to investors who spent about $1 million on a company that employs at least 10 people.
\nLutnick said that program \u201chas been around for many years for investment in projects\u201d but \u201cit was poorly overseen, poorly executed.\u201d
\nThe new program could mark a dramatic shift in US immigration policy but isn\u2019t unprecedented elsewhere. Countries in Europe and elsewhere offer what have become known as \u201cgolden visas\u201d that allow participants to pay in order to secure immigration status in desirable places.
\nCongress, meanwhile, determines qualifications US for citizenship, but the president said \u201cgold cards\u201d would not require congressional approval.
\nTrump said of future possible recipients of the gold visa program: \u201cThey\u2019ll be wealthy and they\u2019ll be successful and they\u2019ll be spending a lot of money and paying a lot of taxes and employing a lot of people, and we think it\u2019s going to be extremely successful.\u201d
\nHenley & Partners, an advisory firm, says more than 100 countries around the world offer \u201cgolden visas\u201d to wealthy individuals and investors. That list includes the United States, United Kingdom, Spain, Greece, Malta, Australia, Canada and Italy.
\n\u201cCompanies can buy gold cards and, in exchange, get those visas to hire new employees,\u201d Trump said. Despite similar programs already occurring outside the US, he insisted, \u201cNo other country can do this because people don\u2019t want to go to other countries. They want to come here.\u201d
\n\u201cEverybody wants to come here, especially since Nov. 5,\u201d he said of his Election Day victory last fall.
\nLutnick suggested that the gold card \u2014 which would actually work, at least to start, more like a green card, or permanent legal residency \u2014 would raise the price of admission for investors and do away with fraud and \u201cnonsense\u201d that he said characterize the EB-5 program.
\nA pathway to citizenship as part of the new program also would set it apart from the EB-5 program. Trump said vetting people who might be eligible for the gold card will \u201cgo through a process\u201d that is still being worked out.
\nPressed on if there would be restrictions on people from China or Iran not being allowed to participate, Trump suggested it will likely not \u201cbe restricted to much in terms of countries, but maybe in terms of individuals.\u201d
\nAbout 8,000 people obtained investor visas in the 12-month period ending Sept. 30, 2022, according to the Homeland Security Department\u2019s most recent Yearbook of Immigration Statistics.
\nThe 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 \u2014 meant to curb some of those risks.
\nTrump offered few details on how the new program might work, including making no mention of existing EB-5 requirements for job creation. While the number of EB-5 visas is capped, meanwhile, the Republican president mused that the federal government could sell 10 million \u201cgold cards\u201d to reduce the deficit. He said it \u201ccould be great, maybe it will be fantastic.\u201d
\n\u201cIt\u2019s somewhat like a green card, but at a higher level of sophistication,\u201d the president said. \u201cIt\u2019s a road to citizenship for people \u2014 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.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump said Wednesday that he plans to start selling a \u201cgold card\u201d visa with a potential pathway to US citizenship for $5 million, seeking to have that new initiative replace a 35-year-old visa program for investors. \u201cI happen to think it\u2019ll sell like crazy. It\u2019s a market,\u201d Trump said. \u201cBut we\u2019ll know …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":77687,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-77670","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77670","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77670"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77670\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":77688,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77670\/revisions\/77688"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/77687"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77670"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77670"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77670"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}