The American government has the capacity to distribute around 1.1 million permanent resident cards during the current financial year, which are divided into categories for family members, workers with advanced skills and other groups based on specific rules.
Lutnick initially offered Trump’s gold card to replace one of these categories, known as EB-5 investors visa, which is perhaps the closest thing that the United States currently has a golden visa.
Created by the congress in 1990, the program currently authorizes around 10,000 foreigners to obtain a green card each year by investing $ 1.05 million in the United States (or $ 800,000 in rural areas and regions prey to high unemployment), supporting at least 10 full-time jobs.
When the program was initially designed, according to experts, legislators did a lot of trouble to ensure that it was not considered a way for corrupt oligarchs to buy their way in the United States. Part of this effort was to ensure that the immigration authorities carefully assess each request EB-5 to verify that investment funds do not come from illegal or uncompromising sources.
“There is a whole unit in the USCIS filled with economists and national security experts” who examine EB-5 applications, explains Doug Rand, former principal advisor to USCIS under the Biden administration. During his stay in the government, says Rand, there were so many documents associated with EB-5 petitions that the imposing files of files caused a collapse of the soil inside the siege of the USCIS.
It is not clear if this same level of control will be applied to the gold card program. When asked during the February briefing if a Russian oligarch would be eligible, Trump said “Yes, perhaps, hey I know Russian oligarchs who are very nice people.”
Defenders of the existing EB-5 program say that it was mainly used by ordinary immigrants who have saved for years to invest in American real estate developments and other companies, and expect to recover their money one day. In other words, it is not a group of people who can generally afford to pay $ 5 million for a gold card and never see these funds again.
“Most people trying to take advantage of the EB-5 program as a way to a green card and citizenship do not have this type of money,” explains Brad Sher, director general of EB5 Group, an investment company specializing in fundraising for EB5 real estate projects. “They are mainly working class people who work hard to save their money, and they often use the majority of their savings to find the investment amounts to take advantage of the EB-5.” (Sher adds that he supports Trump’s gold card, although he hopes he can coexist alongside the EB-5 visa).
During the initial information of the Oval Office on February 25, Lutnick said that the Gold Card initiative would be launched in about two weeks. During his interview with Podcast, which released a month later on March 20, he also said that the project was upon us. “About two weeks from today, it goes out,” said Lodnick, hitting his hand in the air to emphasize. Whether it is really ready and, in the affirmative, when it is announced, stay unknown.
Additional report by Matt Giles and Zeyi Yang.
