US President Donald Trump launched his much-touted ‘Gold Visa’ programme on Wednesday, saying it’s a “better form” of Green Card that ensures “only the best people” can enter the United States after having been “vetted”.
The new immigration pathway will allow foreigners to pay USD 1 million to expedite their visa application, or have companies pay USD 2 million to sponsor a foreign worker they want to bring into the US.
“Very excitingly, for me and for the country, we’ve just launched the ‘Trump Gold Card,’” the President said at a White House roundtable event.
The visa can be “bought” from the visa website, trumpcard.gov, which launched Wednesday afternoon and includes a link of the official application, promising “US residency in record time.”
“For a USD 15,000 DHS processing fee and, after background approval, a contribution of USD 1 million, receive US residency in record time with the Trump Gold Card,” the official website reads.
Flanked by IBM’s Indian-American CEO, Arvind Krishna. and Dell Technologies’ CEO, Michael Dell, Trump said companies can “buy” the Gold Card to keep the students they hire from top American universities such as Wharton, Harvard and MIT in the US.
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It’s a “shame” that students from countries such as India and China have to go back to their home countries after graduating from top American universities in the absence of a legal framework that allows companies to retain such talent, said the President.
Comparing it with the Green Card that offers permanent residency in the US, Trump said it’s a “Green Card, but much better, much more powerful, a much stronger path and a path is a big deal. Have to be great people, but much stronger path”, which also helps companies.
“It is a gift of getting somebody great coming into our country, because we think these will be some tremendous people that wouldn’t be allowed to stay. They graduate from college, you have to go back to India, they have to go back to China, they have to go back to France. They have to go back to where ever they came from. Very hard to stay. It’s a shame. It’s ridiculous thing. We’re taking care of that,” he said during the roundtable.
The visa plan, added the President, will also rake in “billions of dollars”.
“So it’ll be a great thing. We’ll take in, I think, billions of dollars, many billions of dollars even. So that’s very exciting,” he said.
Citing the example of IBM, Trump said if the company wants to hire an individual at the top of his or her class at Wharton, but can’t guarantee the person stays in the country, the company can buy the Gold Card and “that employee can be there for essentially a very long period of time.
“It’s basically a much better form of green card. And you can’t get green cards. They are impossible to get. This is much better than a green card,” he said.
Commerce Secretary, Howard Lutnick, said the visa pathway will involve “full” and “best” vetting to “make sure these people absolutely qualify to be in America.”
“Obviously, they have to be perfect people in America, and having passed the vetting. After five years, they’ll be available to become citizens,” he said, adding that the corporation will then be eligible to put someone else on the card.
“For a company they can keep putting people on the card, one person per card, and for an individual, it’s a million dollars. And it’s a gift to the United States of America, to help America be great again under Donald Trump,” Lutnick said.
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