Featured Image Credit: Getty Images/Chip Somodevilla
Topics: Politics, Donald Trump, US News
Joe Yates
Topics: Politics, Donald Trump, US News
As President Donald Trump cracks down on illegal immigrants residing in the US, he's offering migrants with enough money the opportunity to fast-track US citizenship.
On Tuesday (February 25), the Republican revealed plans that to introduce a $5,000,000 'gold card' visa that effectively would grant immigrants with deep enough pockets the chance to legally reside, and work, in America.
The 78-year-old described it as working like a 'green card privileges plus' paper, and could be ready to launch within a fortnight.
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Now, Trump has touched on the topic again, this time to members during the inaugural meeting of his Cabinet, stating that he is certain he'll be able to flog thousands of them.
"I happen to think it'll sell like crazy. It's a market. But we'll know very soon," the president said.
"If we sell a million, that's $5 trillion dollars.
"I think we will sell a lot because I think there's really a thirst."
US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick dubbed the option the 'Trump gold card' and slammed the current EB-5 visa as 'full of nonsense and make-believe fraud.'
The EB-5 visa costs around $20,000, and stipulates overseas investors have to invest around a million dollars into a US company.
"We're going to end the EB-5 program and we're going to replace it with the Trump gold card," Trump told reporters in his Oval Office on Tuesday (February 26).
Lutnick further revealed the 'gold card' will be reserved for 'wonderful world-class global citizens' and would go towards tackling the federal deficit.
Talking with journalists, he also teased it would offer a unique 'route to citizenship' that has 'never been done before,' adding: "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."
"You're getting big taxpayers, big job producers, and we'll be able to sell maybe a million of these cards, maybe more than that," Trump continued. "It could be great, maybe it will be fantastic."
The president claimed the loop-hole doesn't need Congress approval, either.
"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," he said.
It would also be open to foreign investors from around the world, meaning it would be open to Russian businesspeople and oligarchs to apply for a gold card, providing they can cough up the $5 million fee.
"I know some Russian oligarchs that are very nice people," Trump continued. "They're not quite as wealthy as they used to be."