Gold Card vs Green Card: All You Need To Know About Trump’s New Residency Permit

United States President Donald Trump on Tuesday (Feb 25) unveiled a new residency permit for wealthy foreigners—a ‘Gold Card’.

The president announced that he would sell this new ‘Gold Card’ to rich foreign nationals, allowing them a right to live and work in the US, similar to the coveted ‘green card’.

What is Gold Card and how is it different from Green Card?

While the Green Card grants people permanent residency in the US, usually through employment, family sponsorship, or investment (via EB-5), the Gold Card offers the same benefits for a whopping $5 million purchase price to help fast-track US citizenship for wealthy applicants.

The Green Card offers US residency on the basis of merit or relationship criteria. However, a Gold Card will serve as a direct route for wealthy foreigners to obtain residency.

The Gold Cards would replace the government’s EB-5 immigrant investor visa programme. This route allowed foreign investors to pump money into US projects that create jobs and then apply for visas to immigrate to the US. Currently, the programme issues green cards to immigrants who invest at least $1,050,000, or $800,000 in economically distressed zones called targeted employment areas to create jobs for American workers.

The president announced that the ‘Gold Card’ would be available for anyone who can afford it, provided they clear the vetting process. The cost of securing US citizenship through this method would be $5 million.

“You have a green card. This is a gold card. 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 it’s going to be a route to citizenship. And wealthy people would be coming into our country by buying this card,” Trump announced, speaking from the Oval Office at the White House.

According to Trump, even Russian oligarchs—usually heavily sanctioned by the US—could buy this gold card and US citizenship.

The sale of these ‘gold cards’ would begin in the next two weeks, said the US president, adding that millions of such cards could be sold to the highest bidders.

Why did Trump introduce ‘Gold Card’?

Trump claimed that the new programme would generate significant revenue that would help in paying back the national debt. He further predicted strong interest from wealthy individuals and suggested selling one million gold cards.

Trump’s Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, who was standing alongside Trump as the announcement was made, said that the EB-5 visa programme was being exploited and has been priced too low.

“The EB-5 program … it was full of nonsense, make believe and fraud, and it was a way to get a green card that was low price. So the president said, 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,” he said.

(With inputs from agencies)