US President Trump Proposes $5 Million ‘Gold Cards’ for Wealthy Immigrants as Fast-Track to Citizenship

U.S. President Donald Trump has announced plans to introduce a “gold card” program, offering a path to citizenship for $5 million, as a replacement for the existing EB-5 investor visa.

“It’s going to give you green card privileges plus it’s going to be a route to citizenship, and wealthy people would be coming into our country by buying this card.”

“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,” Trump said in the Oval Office adding that details about the scheme will come out in two weeks.

While the number of EB-5 visas is capped, Trump said that the federal government could sell 10 million “gold cards” to reduce the deficit. He said it “could be great, maybe it will be fantastic.”

“It’s somewhat like a green card, but at a higher level of sophistication, it’s a road to citizenship for people, and essentially people of wealth or people of great talent, where people of wealth pay for those people of talent to get in, meaning companies will pay for people to get in and to have long, long term status in the country,” he said.

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick stated that the “Trump Gold Card” will replace EB-5 visas within two weeks. The EB-5 program, established by Congress in 1990, was designed to attract foreign investment by offering visas to individuals who invest approximately $1 million in a business that creates at least 10 jobs.

Lutnick explained that the gold card, which is essentially a green card granting permanent legal residency, would increase the investment threshold and eliminate fraud and “nonsense” associated with the EB-5 program. Like other green cards, it would also provide a pathway to citizenship.

According to the Homeland Security Department’s most recent Yearbook of Immigration Statistics*, around 8,000 people obtained investor visas in the 12-month period ending September 30, 2022.