The United States has announced a ‘Gold Card’ investor visa programme which will offer wealthy immigrants an opportunity to get citizenship of the country. The Gold Card is likely to replace the existing EB-5 visa route.
Addressing the media on Tuesday, US President Trump said, “We are going to be selling a gold card. We are going to put a price on that card of about $5 million. “It’s going to give you green card privileges, plus it’s going to be a route to (American) citizenship, and wealthy people would be coming into our country buying this card,” he added.
Expressing hope that the Gold Card visa programme would succeed, the President said that wealthy people coming in through the Gold Card route would invest money in the US and create employment. “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”, said Trump. Describing the EB-5 programme as ‘nonsense’ and ‘a way to get a low-price green card’, US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnik confirmed that the Gol Card Visa programme will replace it. “So the President said, rather than having this sort of ridiculous EB-5 programme, we’re going to end the EB-5 programme. We’re going to replace it with the Trump Gold Card,” Lutnik said.
“They’ll be able to pay $5 million to the US government not to go through vetting, of course, going to make sure they are wonderful world-class, global citizens. They can come to America. The President can give them a green card and they can invest in America, and we can use that money to reduce our deficit,” he added.
What is the EB-5 visa programme?
The EB-5 programme was introduced by the US Congress in 1990 to ‘stimulate the US economy through job creation and capital investment by foreign investors’. The programme is administered by the US Citizenship and Immigration Services.
The existing EB-5 visa programme allows foreigners to get a Green Card (a permanent right to live and work in the US) by investing in US companies. After President Trump ended the US birthright citizenship, the EB-5 visa programme was viewed as a viable option for many Indians. Under the EB-5 visa route, investors investing $1.8 million or a minimum of $800,000 in a non-targeted Employment Area (TEA) project and creating or preserving at least 10 permanent, full-time jobs for qualified US workers are eligible for permanent residency in the US along with their spouse and unmarried children under 21 years of age.
Under the newly introduced Gold Card, immigrants will have to invest much more than what they needed to invest under the EB5 programme. These funds will go directly to the US government. The details of the Gold Card programme are expected to be released in two weeks.
What does the Gold Visa programme mean for Indians seeking Green Cards?
Indians form one of the largest groups facing considerable wait times for U.S. green cards, with backlogs stretching beyond 50 years in certain employment-based categories. The gold card would likely prioritize wealth over job creation as Indians could do away with the EB-5 Visa programme that mandated investors to pump in a minimum of $800,000 in TEA projects or provide employment to at least 10 US workers.
It will also benefit Indian business magnates rather than skilled professionals, which is likely to favour High-Net-Worth individuals over skilled professionals. However, President Trump while announcing the new gold card visa programme said he expects the new policy for the naturalisation of foreigners would reap multiple benefits to the United States, including the generation of employment through investment by wealthy individuals.
However, the programme certainly opens a new pathway for affluent Indians to buy their way into becoming US citizens and bypassing years of wait time and concomitant anxiety associated with possible policy changes that might affect their chances of getting Green Cards.
