Trump wants to sell $5 million “gold cards” as a way to citizenship
President Donald Trump says he wants to offer a “gold card” for wealthy immigrants who will give him a path to citizenship in exchange for a $5 million purchase price.
President Donald Trump’s longtime “gold card” is open for business, offering foreigners a path to US citizenship after paying $5 million to the government.
But even if you have money, there is a waitlist at trumpcard.gov. And read the fine print carefully. $5 million won’t buy you citizenship right away.
Trump says he is not seeking approval from Congress because he does not provide citizenship to gold card buyers – just the path to citizenship. The path to card buyers’ citizenship requirements is unknown, and White House officials say details will be provided soon.
The most common path to US citizenship through naturalization is to be a legal permanent resident for at least five years. Applicants require that they be at least 18 years old when they can apply, read, write and speak basic English (according to their age), and are “good moral personality.”
Trump also described the card he called the Trump Card “is like a green card, but is also a higher level of refinement.”
“At $5 million dollars, the trump card is here!” President Donald Trump announced the Truth Social on June 11th.
The website shows a golden card image that resembles a playing card’s face and asks a few questions, including name, region, email address, whether the applicant is applying as himself or as a business.
The new website asks interested people to fill out a form specifying eight regions: Europe, Asia (including the Middle East), North America, Oceania, Central America, South America, the Caribbean and Africa.
Other countries also offer immigration programs that provide permanent residency or citizenship to foreign investors in exchange for investment. For example, Portugal will provide a path to residency and EU citizenship in five years.
When he first came up with the idea in February, Trump said the cards would replace the “EB-5” immigrant investor green card visa program.
The EB-5 visa allows immigrant investors the option to invest between $800,000 and $1.05 million to obtain a green card. Investment money is used to help create or preserve jobs in the United States.
“Wealthy people will come to our country by purchasing this card,” Trump said in February. “They are wealthy, they will be successful, they will spend a lot of money, pay a lot of taxes and hire a lot of people.”
“It’s the path to citizenship for people, people of essentially wealth, or for the great talent that wealthy people pay to enter talented people,” he said.
Swapna Venugopal Ramaswamy is a White House correspondent for USA Today. x You can follow her at @swapnavenugopal