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Journalism of Courage
United States Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick said on Monday (June 16) that around 70,000 people had signed up for the new golden Trump Card, a new visa scheme which would offer permanent residence in the country for $5 million.
The announcement came after the US Department of Commerce last week launched a website — trumpcard.gov — for applicants to submit their name, region and email address, and specify whether they are applying as an individual or a business, in order “to be notified the moment access opens”.
Meant for wealthy foreigners, the Trump Card would grant them residency and work rights as well as a path to citizenship without going through the usual hassle or red tape. US President Donald Trump first announced the initiative in February this year, and in April, he showed a sample gold-coloured card bearing his visage to reporters on board Air Force One.
Trump administration officials have suggested that the card will replace the EB-5 immigrant investor visa programme, which grants permanent residency to immigrants who invest around $1 million in a business that creates jobs, or $800,000 in a rural or economically depressed area. Last year, 14,000 such visas were granted, according to Invest In the USA, an EB-5 trade association.
Reasons for the launch
The Trump Card has been launched to tackle the country’s budget deficit, and possibly even chip away at the $36.2 trillion national debt. Lutnick said that issuing 200,000 visas would help raise $1 trillion for the Treasury.
In February, President Trump told reporters, “It is a great thing, the Gold Card. Remember the words ‘the Gold Card’… Wealthy people will be coming into our country by buying this card.
They will be wealthy and they will be successful and they will be spending a lot of money and paying a lot of taxes and employing a lot of people. And we think it is going to be extremely successful, never been done before anything like this.”
The President had also said that his administration would be able to sell a “million of these cards, maybe more than that”, which would be worth “$5 trillion”.
The challenges
Although there has been a lot of fanfare around the Trump Card, experts say it is unlikely that the Trump administration would be able to sell a million or more of these cards.
One reason for this is that, unlike the EB-5 visa programme, the new initiative is not an investment which might offer a return, but rather a donation to the US government, immigration lawyer Darren Silver told NPR.
“I had to explain to them, ‘You are gifting the US government $5 million. That is all you are doing,” said Silver. “And once I explain that to them, they are out.”
Also, experts suggest that the launch of the Trump Card might not be legal as the initiative has not been approved by the US Congress. Several immigration lawyers, Democrats as well as Republicans have said that the President does not have the legal authority to issue such cards.
