United States President Donald Trump announced that the US will soon offer a “gold card” visa with a road to citizenship for $5 million, replacing a 35-year-old investor visa.
Trump Gold Card
Donald Trump said in a press meeting, “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”.
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.
EB-5 visa Program
The existing EB-5 visa, allows immigrant investors to get Green Cards by investing in US businesses. The new ‘Gold Card’ initiative could replace the existing EB-5 program.
Lutnick stated the gold card is nothing but a green card that would raise the price of admission for investors and do away with fraud and “nonsense” that he said characterize the EB-5 program. Like other green cards, it would include a path to citizenship.
About 8,000 people got investor visas in the 12-month period ending September 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
US Golden Visa for These Countries
Investors’ visas are common around the world. Henley & Partners, an advisory company, says more than 100 countries around the world offer “golden visas” to wealthy individuals, including the United States, United Kingdom, Spain, Greece, Malta, Australia, Canada and Italy.
Trump made no mention of the requirements for job creation. While the number of EB-5 visas is capped, Trump mused that the federal government could sell 10 million “gold cards” to reduce the deficit. He said it “could be great, maybe it will be fantastic.”
He said, “It’s somewhat like a green card, but at a higher level of sophistication, 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”.
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