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Trump's $5 million 'Gold Card Visa': Fast-track to US citizenship for super rich
India Today
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2/26/2025
US President Donald Trump announced a 'Gold Card Visa' costing $5 million for citizenship, replacing the investor visa programme.
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00:00
US President Donald Trump has announced that he plans to offer what he calls a
00:06
gold card visa with a path to citizenship. It's only going to cost you
00:13
five million dollars. It's incredible but he actually said it and he means it. He
00:19
says he's going to be rolling it out in just a couple of weeks from now. He says
00:24
this gold card visa with a path to citizenship for which you have to pay
00:28
five million dollars replaces a 35 year old visa for investors. However the move
00:35
if it comes into effect will compound possibly the woes of skilled Indian
00:41
professionals stuck in long green card queues and backlogs. The program this
00:47
gold card program driven by Trump's everything's business mindset is likely
00:52
to come into effect by April with around 10 million such gold card visas likely
00:57
to be up for grabs initially. This proposed gold card visa scheme raises
01:02
the financial requirement by five times to five million dollars. That's a huge
01:08
amount. Hefty price makes it out of reach for middle-tier investors despite being
01:14
a much faster and simpler route to getting US residency. The job creation
01:19
requirement is also done away with making it hassle-free. It's basically
01:24
cash and gaddy towards citizenship of the United States. We're going to be
01:30
doing something else that's got to be very very good. We're going to be selling
01:35
a gold card. You have a green card. This is a gold card. We're going to be putting
01:42
a price on that card of about five million dollars and that's going to give
01:46
you green card privileges plus. It's going to be a route to citizenship and
01:51
wealthy people will be coming into our country by buying this card. They'll be
01:55
wealthy and they'll be successful and they'll be spending a lot of money and
01:59
paying a lot of taxes and employing a lot of people and we think it's going to
02:03
be extremely successful and never been done before anything like this but it's
02:07
something that we're going to be putting out over the next would you say two
02:10
weeks out? You want to say a couple of words about it? To end the EB-5 program we're
02:14
going to replace it with the Trump gold card which is really a green card gold
02:20
so they'll be able to pay five million dollars to the US government. They'll have to go
02:24
through vetting of course. We're going to make sure they're wonderful world-class
02:27
global citizens. They can come to America. The president can give them a green card
02:32
and they can invest in America and we can use that money to reduce our
02:38
deficit. Why do we give out lotteries of green cards? Why do we give out EB-5 for
02:43
green cards? The President of the United States understands that the right answer is why
02:48
don't we eliminate the deficit of the United States of America. I want to go
02:53
across to India Today's foreign affairs editor Geeta Mohan for more on this. You
02:57
know Geeta, whenever one hears an announcement of this kind from Donald
03:02
Trump you know you have to remind yourself that it is the US president
03:06
speaking. This is in some ways outlandish but very much keeping with
03:12
Brand Trump looking to disrupt you know one of his pet subjects which is people
03:18
coming into the United States. Just break this down for us. You know is this
03:22
is this a citizenship yojana that is going to disrupt other avenues for
03:29
citizenship in the United States? What exactly is this about? Five million
03:33
dollars is an enormous amount of money. Well absolutely but it is a while it is
03:38
going to be a huge disruptor. It will certainly not affect those who are going
03:44
through the professional route which is H-1B visa. We've heard Elon Musk, we've
03:49
heard Vivek Ramaswamy talk about and justify the need for H-1B visas
03:55
particularly when it comes to Indians. There are many Indians who are not
03:58
looking at citizenship. They would like to go work there and yes there's a
04:02
longer route to a green card which a lot of people might want to wait but this is
04:08
very very Trump like to have not just a disruptor but also to increase the value.
04:15
He's saying that one million dollar is not not worth America's while and if you
04:22
want to be an American citizenship by investment then looking at five million
04:26
dollars he's increased the cap from eight hundred thousand to two to ten
04:30
million which is a huge number. There are a lot of people who are looking at
04:35
American citizenship and might have the money. In a way he's trying to maybe look
04:41
at containing illegal immigration but people who go to America via the illegal
04:49
routes do not have this kind of money. And the ones who have this kind of
04:53
money would be willing to pay if should they want to give up their citizenship
04:57
or have dual citizenship. So a disruptor but right now if you look at the initial
05:03
stages what does it entail? Do you have to create jobs? It does not have any
05:09
details on job requirement. EB5 did. You had to employ people in the United
05:15
States of America. So there are a lot of details that are still missing. We'll have to wait and see what
05:19
those details are going to look like for now. It looks like a proposition where
05:23
Trump is only looking at reducing the deficit in the United States of
05:29
America. Will that really invite a lot of people to pay five million dollars
05:33
for citizenship in the United States of America? We'll have to wait and see. How
05:37
will it impact Indians especially professionals as of now? Because they
05:42
have not cancelled H1B visas, they remain unaffected. Okay and also the you
05:47
know there's lack of clarity on whether this will impact. Obviously this is you
05:50
know completely separate from the illegal immigration conundrum that Trump
05:55
is cracking down on but will there be a spillover effect or you know augmented
06:01
delays as far as the huge backlog for green cards is concerned? As Geeta said
06:06
there is little clarity on that but hopefully we'll get that soon. But this
06:10
is this is signature Trump. This is you know he's gonna put out just a big
06:13
headline and then maybe the details will come out later and either make
06:18
everything more dramatic or actually make everything more sober. Let's try and
06:21
understand this because because the proposition itself is tantalizing.
06:26
Earlier it was 800,000 you know for professionals wanting to move to the
06:30
United States to create jobs. Now Trump is basically saying forget about all the
06:35
other conditions. If you can fork out five million dollars cash up front then
06:40
you get a green card plus and that puts you on some kind of a fast track towards
06:46
citizenship of the United States which is of course the big holy grail of what
06:50
many people going to the United States are really aiming for.
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