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As the Trump administration prepares to roll out its “gold card” visa program, it’s also working on companion legislation for Congress to give the force of law to the $5 million visas.
President Donald Trump first announced the visa plan last month, noting cards would become available for sale around two weeks later. The gold card program is still not up and running, but in the meantime, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick is working with Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, on legislation that would merge ideas behind the gold card with changes to the EB-5 visa for immigrant investors.
“We’re trying to come up with some legislation that would make that happen,” Cornyn told Semafor of Trump’s gold card plan. “It is sort of the ultimate merit-based immigration. And if we continue to attract the smartest, most accomplished people from around the world to America, that’s good for all of us.”
The EB-5, created by Congress in 1990, allows immigrants to pursue legal status by committing to major investments in the US. The Trump administration first billed the gold card as a replacement for the EB-5 visa but is now describing it as a way to “modify” the existing program.
Lutnick said on a podcast last week that he sold around 1,000 gold cards in one day, the equivalent of $5 billion in government revenue, and suggested it will “go out” in around two weeks, but it’s still not clear if there’s an exact date for the program to officially launch.
The cards will “be implemented soon,” an administration official told Semafor.
The Commerce Department did not return a request for comment on the forthcoming program.
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The president’s latest initiative, which reportedly stemmed from a conversation with billionaire investor John Paulson, is aimed at wealthy foreigners willing to pay to live in the US.
The White House hopes the program will help pay off the country’s national debt and doesn’t believe Trump needs congressional approval to proceed (though Cornyn’s interest in legislation subtly indicates that Congress would like to be involved).
Some top Republicans are discussing using potential revenue from the program to help pay for their party-line tax cuts bill this year — but Cornyn and other senators told Semafor that so far, that’s an uncertain play.
And not every GOP lawmaker has quite bought in yet on the gold cards, whose development is a multi-agency effort that includes Elon Musk. Lutnick has said Musk is helping develop software that could deal with applications and the legal papers that the card will require.
Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., said he’d prefer to change the EB-5 program and keep the visas’ focus on business investments rather than an out-of-pocket charge of $5 million.
“It needs to be more than just writing a check,” Tills said. “It has to do with the business investments. So I think that’s what we want to do, versus just stroke a check.”
Notable
- In another example of Trump overhauling the immigration system, the Department of Homeland Security recently paused the processing of some green card applications to comply with one of his latest executive orders, per MSNBC.
- Trump proposed renaming the gold card the “Trump card,” telling Fox News’ Laura Ingraham the name “sells much better.”