US President Donald Trump spoke about his plans for the new immigration initiative called ‘Gold Card’, aimed at attracting wealthy, job-creating individuals to the United States.
“We will now bring in brilliant, hardworking, job-creating people,” Trump said during his address to Congress, reiterating that the new programme would offer a pathway to US citizenship for a $5 million fee.
“With that goal in mind, we have developed in great detail what we are calling the Gold Card, which goes on sale very, very soon for $5 million. We will allow the most successful job-creating people from all over the world to buy a path to US citizenship. It’s like the Green Card, but better and more sophisticated,” Trump said.
He added that recipients of the Gold Card would be required to pay taxes in the US while contributing to the economy through job creation.
“These people will have to pay tax in our country. They won’t have to pay tax from where they came, the money that they’ve made. But they have to pay tax, create jobs,” the US President said.
“We will now bring in brilliant, hardworking, job creating people. They’re going to pay a lot of money and we’re going to reduce our debt with that money,” he further explained.
The Gold Card programme is expected to replace the existing EB-5 Immigrant Investor Programme, which grants visas to foreign investors who create at least 10 jobs in the US with a minimum investment of $1 million. Trump has claimed that the new initiative would provide a more effective and lucrative alternative.
“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,” he had said.
Trump argued that many such individuals were forced to return to their home countries, where they went on to build successful businesses. “They return to India or their home country, start businesses, and become billionaires, employing thousands,” he said. The Gold Card, he added, would allow companies to retain top talent by purchasing the card as part of their recruitment strategy. “I want to be able to have that person stay in the country. These companies can go and buy a Gold Card, and they can use it as a matter of recruitment.”
The Gold Card proposal echoes similar ‘golden visa’ schemes in countries like Canada, New Zealand, and Malta, where wealthy investors can obtain residency or citizenship by making significant financial contributions.