Trump says US will sell $5M gold cards to foreigners: Green card privileges-plus

WASHINGTON — President Trump announced Tuesday that the US government will soon begin selling $5 million “gold cards” that convey both green-card residency status and a path to American citizenship to foreigners — predicting 1 million cards will be sold and saying the initiative could quickly pay down the national debt.“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,” Trump said in the Oval Office.“We’re going to be putting a price on that card of about $5 million and that’s going to give you green card privileges-plus,” the president added as he rolled out the plan to a group of journalists.“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.”Trump claimed that the initiative had been approved by administration lawyers and will launch in roughly “two weeks.”Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, appearing alongside Trump, said the program could be a more successful version of the EB-5 visa initiative, established by legislation in 1990 which granted certain investors a green card if they meet certain criteria.“Rather than having this sort of ridiculous EB-5 program, we’re going to end the EB-5 program.

We’re going to replace it with the Trump Gold Card, which is really a green card,” Lutnick said.“They’ll be able to pay $5 million to the US government.They’ll have to go through vetting, of course, to make sure they’re wonderful world-class global citizens.”Trump said that he believed everyone from Russian oligarchs to Indian tech entrepreneurs would pay for the cards.“Apple and all these companies that want to get people to be working for them will be able to buy a card, and for the people that are number one in their class at top schools, I see that as one of the things,” Trump said.“But general...