Trump plans to offer ’gold cards’ for $5 million path to citizenship, replacing investor visas
The Hindu
President Trump plans to offer a $5 million "gold card" visa with a path to citizenship for investors.
U.S. President Donald Trump said Tuesday (February 25, 2025) that he plans to offer a “gold card” visa with a path to citizenship for $5 million, replacing a 35-year-old visa for investors.
"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,” Mr. Trump said in the Oval Office.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said the “Trump Gold Card” would replace EB-5 visas in two weeks. EB-5s were created by Congress in 1990 to generate foreign investment and are available to people who spend about $1 million on a company that employs at least 10 people.
Also read: U.S. hikes visa fees for various categories of non-immigrant visas like H-1B, EB-5 among others in 2024
Mr. Lutnick said the gold card — actually a green card, or permanent legal residency — would raise the price of admission for investors and do away with fraud and “nonsense” that he said characterize the EB-5 program. Like other green cards, it would include a path to citizenship.
About 8,000 people obtained investor visas in the 12-month period ending September 30, 2022, according to the Homeland Security Department’s most recent Yearbook of Immigration Statistics. The Congressional Research Service reported in 2021 that EB-5 visas pose risks of fraud, including verification that funds were obtained legally.
Investors’ visas are common around the world. Henley and Partners, an advisory firm, says more than 100 countries around the world offer “golden visas” to wealthy individuals, including the United States, United Kingdom, Spain, Greece, Malta, Australia, Canada and Italy.
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