Donald Trump reveals plans to sell $5,000,000 'Gold Card' visas to migrants
The president has revealed plans to sell $5,000,000 'Gold Card' visas to migrants.
Donald Trump is reportedly reviewing plans to launch a 'gold card' visa, which would grant wealthy immigrants the chance to work in the United States.
The visa route would even offer the migrants a fast-track to US citizenship.
However, it's not cheap, coming in at $5 million dollars per applicant.
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The president has said the 'gold card' would replace the current EB-5 visa route and be exclusive to vetted, millionaire migrants.
Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office on Tuesday (February 25), Trump said: "We're going to be selling a gold card. You have a green card. This is a gold card."
He revealed the gold card would be like a 'green card privileges plus' and ready to launch within a fortnight.
The 78-year-old also teased it would offer a unique 'route to citizenship' that as '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."
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," he said.
Lutnick further revealed the 'gold card' will be reserved for 'wonderful world-class global citizens' and would go towards tackling the federal deficit.
The White House team predict the program could raise $55 trillion in revenue and attract affluent foreign investors to the states.
"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."
Topics: Donald Trump, US News, Politics, Money
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