The US government has the capacity to dole out roughly 1.1 million permanent resident cards in the current fiscal year, which are divided into categories for family members, workers with advanced skills, and other groups based on precise rules.
Lutnick originally proposed Trump’s gold card as a replacement for one of these categories, known as the EB-5 investor visa, which is perhaps the closest thing the United States currently has to a golden visa.
Created by Congress in 1990, the program currently allows roughly 10,000 foreigners to obtain a green card each year by making a $1.05 million investment in the United States (or $800,000 in rural areas and regions plagued by high-unemployment), supporting at least 10 full-time jobs.
When the program was initially crafted, experts say, lawmakers went to great lengths to ensure it wasn’t seen as a pathway for corrupt oligarchs to unfairly buy their way into the United States. Part of that effort was ensuring immigration authorities carefully assess each EB-5 application to verify the investment funds aren’t coming from illegal or unsavory sources.
“There’s a whole unit in USCIS filled with economists and national security experts” who review EB-5 applications, says Doug Rand, a former senior advisor at USCIS under the Biden administration. During his time in the government, Rand says, there was so much paperwork associated with EB-5 petitions that the towering stacks of files caused the floor inside USCIS headquarters to sag.
It’s not clear if this same level of scrutiny will be applied to the gold card program. When asked during the February briefing whether a Russian oligarch would be eligible, Trump said “yeah, possibly, hey I know some Russian oligarchs that are very nice people.”
Advocates for the existing EB-5 program say it has mostly been used by ordinary immigrants who saved for years to invest in American real estate developments and other enterprises, and expect to make their money back one day. In other words, it’s not a group of people who can typically afford to pay $5 million for a gold card and never see those funds again.
“Most people who are trying to take advantage of the EB-5 program as a pathway to a green card and citizenship do not have that type of money,” Brad Sher, chief executive of EB5 Group, an investment firm that specializes in raising money for EB5 real estate projects, tells WIRED. “They are mostly working-class people who work hard to save their money, and they’re often using a majority of their savings to come up with the investment amounts to take advantage of EB-5.” (Sher adds that he is supportive of Trump’s Gold Card, though he hopes it can coexist alongside the EB-5 visa).
During the initial Oval Office briefing on February 25, Lutnick said the gold card initiative would be launching in about two weeks. During his podcast interview, which came out a month later on March 20, he also claimed the project was right around the corner. “About two weeks from today it goes out,” Lutnick said, slicing his hand through the air for emphasis. Whether it’s actually ready and, if so, when it will be announced, remain unknown.
Additional reporting by Matt Giles and Zeyi Yang.
