Topline
U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said the government is considering making the $1 million Trump Gold Card the only pathway to a U.S. green card—but immigration experts tell Forbes that it doesn’t pass the legal sniff test.
In a recent meeting with immigration hardliners, Lutnick said the Trump administration was considering “‘suspending’ all other green card categories” so the Trump Gold Card would be the only pathway to immigrate permanently, the Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday evening.
The Trump Gold Card Visa officially launched Friday for 80% less than its original $5 million price tag—a telltale sign, experts say, of low demand.
Multiple immigration experts told Forbes it is neither legal nor feasible for the Trump Gold Card to replace existing pathways to a U.S. green card—including the EB-5 visa, which offers residency through investment, and the EB-1 and EB-2 visas, which offer residency to foreign nationals through employment.
“Congress writes the rules” on visas and “the president can't just snap his fingers and change the rules,” Julia Gelatt, associate director of the U.S. Immigration Policy Program at the Migration Policy Institute, told Forbes.
The Trump administration has hyped the Gold Card but “I don't think it's happening,” Gelatt told Forbes, pointing to recent remarks by Joseph Edlow, the newly confirmed director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), that appeared to indicate the government does not yet have its ducks in a row. “We at the department will ensure that if a Gold Card does come to fruition, that there will be sufficient vetting and screening for any applicant that comes through the process,” Edlow told the Center for Immigration Studies last week. Multiple immigration experts told Forbes that creating a new visa must go through the legislative branch. “Unless Congress acts, there will never be a Trump Gold Card because it’s not consistent with current law, and it's not going to survive the invariable legal challenges,” Jorge Loweree, managing director of programs and strategy at the American Immigration Council, told Forbes. Writing in the National Law Review on Wednesday, attorneys at Ogletree Deakins, one of the country’s largest labor and employment law firms, concluded, “At this time, it is unclear whether the EB-1 and EB-2 immigrant visa programs for people of 'exceptional value' may be replaced, with the potential to eliminate or replace other immigrant visa programs in the future.” It’s strange and perhaps telling, note experts, that the Trump Gold Card is being managed by the Commerce Department and not Homeland Security. “Maybe that's an indication of how things have played out internally,” Loweree speculated. “Maybe there's been some level of pushback at DHS or USCIS in terms of the underlying legal prospects of being able to do this.”
The biggest difference is who benefits from the applicant’s visa fee. The EB-5 visa is an investment immigration program that “was passed by Congress, has been on the books for many years and requires a level of investment between $800,000 and just over $1 million dollars,” Loweree told Forbes. “That money isn’t just a gift the US government. Applicants are required to invest those funds in a commercial enterprise in the U.S., and there's an important job creation component Congress instituted to create greater benefits for businesses and workers already in the U.S.” In comparison, the Trump Gold Card would require applicants to make a flat $1 million donation to the Treasury, which is a far less appealing proposition, according to Nuri Katz, founder of Apex Capital Partners, who has provided investment immigration guidance to ultra-high-net-worth clients around the world for 35 years. “Now what the government is saying is ‘we don't care about you business people. We don't care about job creation. We just want the money put into the Treasury,’” Katz told Forbes, adding the Trump administration is “basically destroying private businesses that were trying to get off the ground by raising funds from EB-5 investors. These are important projects, from hotels to hospitals, around the country that were creating thousands of jobs. By cutting off funding, many will fail, leaving half-built properties and bankrupt American businesses. It is pretty scary, actually.”
Loweree scoffed at the administration’s claim that the Gold Card was designed to drive down the federal debt. “The idea that they’re concerned about the debt when they just championed and pushed through the Big, Beautiful Bill Act that's projected to increase the debt by over $3 trillion is ridiculous. This is an effort to create a new pay-to-play scheme and reorient our immigration system into something that simply favors the rich and moves away from the historical priorities of family reunification and focusing on skills and critical labor that's critical to the U.S. economy.”
“Instead of creating policies that help American businesses and families, President Trump is rolling out the welcome mat for Russian oligarchs and cartel bosses,” U.S. Senator Dick Durbin, D-Ill., ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said in a statement.
Trump Gold Card Visa’s ‘Admission Of Failure’: Gets 80% Price Cut (Forbes)