Trump’s ‘gold card’ program goes live, offering US visas starting at $1 million per person

Now, wealthy individuals will soon be able to buy a so-called golden visa to the United States for $1 million. On social media, Donald Trump has described the scheme as a direct path to citizenship. For more, Caris Garland um from our news desk is with me in the studio. Caris, look, just tell us first of all, how does this um gold card scheme work? So, this is something that Trump first previewed back in February, and he signed an executive order uh in September that essentially created this officially to apply for a gold card. Basically, an individual will have to pay first a non-refundable $15,000 processing fee. From there, the process is expected to take a few weeks. The Department of Homeland Security will conduct a background check, vet this individual, and then the person will have to pay what is uh said on this website as a $1 million gift. So, this the website says, will be proof that the individual will substantially benefit the United States. Basically, if you have money, that’s good for us. There’s also a corporate gold card version where for companies uh businesses can essentially expedite visas for their employees, but they’ll have to pay $2 million for this version and then they’ll have to pay other annual fees uh $20,000 per year to maintain it and $100,000 a year if they wish to transfer the visa to another employee. But the website also floats an idea of a platinum card which uh it says is in the works. This is actually going to cost $5 million and that will allow holders uh to spend up to 270 days per year in the US and not have to pay any US taxes on non US income. So, we’ve seen this website launched on Wednesday. Uh it’s definitely trying to entice a certain kind of person in the US. >> And it may surprise viewers to know, Caris, that actually this kind of um investment in order to get citizenship idea exists already, doesn’t it, in other countries um around the world? Yeah, they’re quite common. Dozens of countries offer the ver their versions of the golden visa. Um New Zealand, for example, it has something that’s called the active investor plus visa. That’s where the person needs to invest the equivalent of $2.9 million US. So, it’s actually more than the gold card. But the difference here is that money will have to go into direct investments or managed funds. The Trump gold card though is framed more as a donation or a contribution and it doesn’t really have at least explicitly on the website no job creation requirement. uh whereas you know that’s the case for other versions like in New Zealand and that was historically the case for the EB5 visas in the US which are created in 1990 to generate foreign investment and Howard Lutnik the commerce secretary had said that this golden this gold card was designed to replace the EB5 visa but you’ve also got other examples that are linked to property investments like in Greece uh one has to invest €250,000 uh euros goes minimum in property. That’s usually more depending on the region. Uh but also it’s notable that some countries have actually modified or closed these kinds of visas recently. Um notably Malta, uh which was not just offering permanent residency, but citizenship, meaning EU citizen citizenship for people who made financial contributions. The European Court of Justice actually this year ruled that was uh not legal. it was against EU uh rules because it was effectively commercializing nationality. So Malta has replaced this with a different framework uh that puts the emphasis on merit on people who can demonstrate exceptional services or contributions to Malta in other fields. >> All right. And let’s go back briefly then to the United States because we must of course keep in mind that while America is trying to entice the wealthy, um it really is cracking down um on immigrants from a host of backgrounds. >> Yeah, we know the Trump administration has been devoting significant resources to deporting millions of undocumented migrants, but also uh it’s made sweeping changes recently to the legal immigration system. Uh in June, Trump put in place a full travel ban which was similar to a measure that he put in place in his first term in 2017. Basically, this is a full travel ban for people from 12 countries including Sudan, Haiti, Iran, Myanmar, and then uh individuals from citizens from seven uh other countries will have partial restrictions. So they can’t apply for permanent residency for example. Otherwise, the federal government has also frozen decisions for asylum applications. Uh that is a measure that can affect as many as 1.5 million people who had pending applications as of the month of June according to government data. And the administration has also said it will reduce the validity of work visas for for migrants, for asylum seekers, uh refugees, and they’ll be required to uh renew their work permits every 18 months instead of 5 years. So we are seeing yeah a very contrasting uh language from the Trump administration regarding these two types of immigrants. Uh Howard Lutnik who I mentioned had previously said or criticized the green card system which is essentially very similar to the gold card system. It’s just that it doesn’t cost as much. He said that is uh making us take the bottom quartile uh of immigrants into the country. We only want the extraordinary people to the very top. >> All right, Caris Garland, thank you very much indeed for uh breaking that down for us.

President Donald Trump announced Wednesday that his long-promised ‘gold card’ was officially going on sale, offering legal status and an eventual pathway to US citizenship for individuals paying $1 million and corporations ponying up twice that per foreign-born employee. FRANCE 24’s Carys Garland has the details.
#USVisa #GoldCardProgram #TrumpVisa

🔔 Subscribe to France 24 now: https://f24.my/YTen
🔴 LIVE – Watch FRANCE 24 English 24/7 here: https://f24.my/YTliveEN

🌍 Read the latest International News and Top Stories: https://www.france24.com/en/

Like us on Facebook: https://f24.my/FBen
Follow us on X: https://f24.my/Xen
Bluesky: https://f24.my/BSen and Threads: https://f24.my/THen
Browse the news in pictures on Instagram: https://f24.my/IGen
Discover our TikTok videos: https://f24.my/TKen
Get the latest top stories on Telegram: https://f24.my/TGen

46 comments

  2. 1 million is fine. it is just when you go to america you pay taxes on everything you touch, a heavy money load. i mean babysitting ten million homeless is not so easy either. american farming needs heavy restructuring, poorly executed. auto industry is in shambles, engineering design fraud nearly everywhere.
    obviosly sucking coal and copper out of the ground would have been a good revenue boost.

  5. Well, this proves trump finds working poor or middle class disgusting. Mean while trump took their votes, he wouldnt last a day in a real job. The irony

  6. A Million Dollars is a lot of money in most countries. If they have that much money, they will happily live there ever after.

  10. People who have money may want residency but not US citizenship because of tax. Once ur r US citizen even if u r not a US tax resident, ur world wide income get taxed 😂 so why would they get citizenship, this is more for right to stay and do business in US

  20. Other expenses should be planned as well in terms of investment, housing, and education in case these gold card US visa applicants have kids. It should be a complete immigration program/process that can benefit everyone.🇺🇸 😮👍

  23. If you pay 1 million dollars to come to the United States, that really means that you will never really make it in the US. You will never be able to hassle.

  29. What happens if you apply for this visa, make he donation, travel to the US then get picked up by ICE? Do you get a refund? Is there a non-deportation or no detention in an ICE detention centre guarantee?

  36. Yup, a great way for non-American companies to have a complete advantage in hiring the international best and brightest. An American company with a 3M incentive package can only offer 1M to the asset, which is easily beaten by a foreign country with only half the budget.

  37. America is not a great place for living. The whole world is losing the attraction for people to go abroad and live in an unfamiliar country, especially for wealthy elites.

  38. 🗑️ someone explain this stupid woman about currency exchange rate and different country perks compared to murican barriers of entry 🗑️

  40. Only welcoming wealthy immigrants would mean these immigrants would hold more power (wealth/money=power) in US society than your native-born American.

  41. Rich people from china will likely buy this, same as what they done for EU and then move to other EU. Also note that rich people in china also like to park wealth to other country than china, because the china government saw rich person is a threat if not align with CCP, Jack Ma is the well-known example

  42. I have never been more embarrassed to admit I'm an American. My dual citizenship is a lifesaver when traveling abroad

Comments are closed.