{"id":22776,"date":"2025-02-27T01:20:41","date_gmt":"2025-02-27T01:20:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/?p=22776"},"modified":"2025-02-27T01:20:41","modified_gmt":"2025-02-27T01:20:41","slug":"donald-trump-says-u-s-will-start-selling-5m-gold-cards-to-admit-wealthy-immigrants","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/?p=22776","title":{"rendered":"Donald Trump Says U.S. Will Start Selling $5M ‘Gold Cards’ to Admit ‘Wealthy’ Immigrants"},"content":{"rendered":"

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The president announced an expensive alternative to green cards on Feb. 25 that will cater to “high-level” foreigners, including Russian oligarchs<\/p>\n

\n
\n

President\u00a0Donald Trump<\/a>\u00a0announced a new immigration plan on Tuesday, Feb. 25, stating that the United States will begin selling $5 million \u201cgold cards\u201d as an alternative to green cards to allow \u201chigh-level\u201d foreigners to enter the country.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

For the hefty fee, gold card holders would be granted the right to live and work in the U.S., and a path to permanent citizenship.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to be selling a gold card,\u201d Trump\u00a0told reporters<\/a>\u00a0from the Oval Office. \u201cYou have a green card. This is a gold card.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to be putting a price on that card of about $5 million and that\u2019s going to give you green card privileges, plus it\u2019s going to be a route to citizenship,\u201d he explained. \u201cAnd wealthy people will be coming into our country by buying this card.\u201d<\/p>\n

When asked if he would sell the cards to Russian oligarchs, Trump replied, \u201cYeah, possibly. I know some Russian oligarchs that are very nice people.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

The president said that the cards will go on sale about two weeks from his announcement, noting that potentially millions of cards would be available.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n
\n
\n
\"Howard<\/div>\n<\/div>
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick during his Jan. 29 confirmation hearing.<\/span>Al Drago\/Bloomberg via Getty<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Trump was joined during the interview by Commerce Secretary\u00a0Howard Lutnick<\/a>, who further explained the gold cards \u2014 and the standards for purchasing one.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cThey\u2019ll have to go through vetting, of course, to make sure they\u2019re wonderful world-class global citizens,\u201d Lutnick noted.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

The program will replace the government\u2019s current EB-5 immigrant investor visa program, which grants green cards to immigrants who make a sizable investment in U.S. projects and create jobs for American workers.<\/p>\n

The current EB-5 guidelines, according to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security\u2019s\u00a0Citizenship and Immigration Services website<\/a>, require a potential candidate to \u201cplan to create or preserve 10 permanent full-time jobs for qualified U.S. workers.\u201d They also must invest either $800,000 in an economically distressed \u201cTargeted Employment Area\u201d or $1,050,000 elsewhere.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

The EB-5 program came under fire during Trump\u2019s first term, as politicians on both sides of the aisle decried it as a \u201cmagnet for fraud.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

\u201cThe EB-5 program I once championed seems like a distant memory,\u201d then-Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy, a onetime chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said at the time.\u00a0\u201cThe program was designed to bring jobs to underserved rural and urban communities \u2026 But the program that exists today has strayed from these goals.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

Congress also questioned Trump\u2019s abilities to make an impartial decision on the program, as EB-5 donations had funded businesses connected to his family.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\"Donald<\/div>\n<\/div>
Jared Kusher and Donald Trump in the Oval Office in April 2017.<\/span>(AP Photo\/Andrew Harnik)<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Trump Bay Street apartments, built by Kushner Companies \u2014 which was managed by Trump’s son-in-law and former White House adviser Jared Kushner \u2014 raised $50 million of its funding through EB-5 investments.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

Never miss a story \u2014 sign up for\u00a0PEOPLE’s free daily newsletter<\/a>\u00a0to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer.<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

Other Trump hotel projects have been rumored to use foreign investments, though\u00a0CNN<\/a>\u00a0reported that it was unclear if any of those funds came from the EB-5 program.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

\u201cThis is a program that\u2019s been around for a long time, but we shouldn\u2019t have a president making decisions about that program when he himself stands to benefit from the investments that these people are making,\u201d Richard Painter, the chief ethics lawyer under the\u00a0George W. Bush<\/a>\u00a0administration, told CNN in 2017. \u201cWhat this program is all about is telling people you\u2019re going to get residency in the United States if you bring a lot of money along with you and invest it in American businesses.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n
\n

\u201cThe president should not be the owner of some of those businesses that are going to be getting that money if he\u2019s administering that program, or if his administration is,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    The president announced an expensive alternative to green cards on Feb. 25 that will cater to “high-level” foreigners, including Russian oligarchs President\u00a0Donald Trump\u00a0announced a new immigration plan on … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":22777,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22776","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22776","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22776"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22776\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22778,"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22776\/revisions\/22778"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/22777"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22776"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22776"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22776"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}