A website allowing foreigners to purchase a “gold card” granting them permanent residency in the United States is expected to debut next week.
The card will cost $5 million for anyone interested, Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick announced Wednesday at the Axios Building the Future event.
If approved, the new gold card program would replace the EB-5 Immigrant Investor Program. Under the EB-5 program, foreign investors can apply to obtain a permanent resident card (known as a green card) and conditionally become permanent residents of the U.S. if they can invest in “a commercial enterprise” in the country and “plan to create or preserve 10 permanent full-time jobs for qualified U.S. workers.” The program was created in 1990 to “stimulate the U.S. economy through job creation and capital investment by foreign investors.”
At the event, Lutnick said the website would debut in a week or so.
“I expect there will be a website up called ‘Trump card dot gov’ in about a week,” Lutnick said. “The details of that will come soon after, but people can start to register.”
Initially, the website will only allow interested parties to register, Lutnick said at Wednesday’s event.
“All that will come over a matter of the next weeks, not month, weeks,” he added.
The proceeds from the new gold card program are expected to help trim the country’s federal debt, which is currently at over $36 trillion, according to CNN.
“These are going to be great people who are going to come and bring businesses and opportunity to America, and they’re going to pay $5 million,” Lutnick said. “If there are 200,000 people who pay, that’s a trillion dollars. That pays for everything.”
The Washington Examiner previously reported that President Donald Trump first teased the innovative visa program during a press conference in February at the White House.
“We’re going to be selling a gold card,” Trump said at the time. “You have a green card. This is a gold card. We’re going to be putting a price on that card of about $5 million, and that’s going to give you green card privileges, plus it’s going to be a route to citizenship. And wealthy people will be coming into our country by buying this card.”
Lutnick has highly supported the plan since Trump first introduced it in February. The commerce secretary emphasized the program’s fiscal benefits, especially given the size of the country’s debt.
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“This is for people who can help America pay off its debt,” Lutnick said at Wednesday’s event. “Why wouldn’t you want a Plan B that says? God forbid something bad happens, you come to the airport in America, and the person in immigration says, ‘Welcome home.’”
“Everyone I meet who’s not an American is going to want to buy the card if they have the fiscal capacity,” he added.
