Trump Signs Executive Order To Create ‘Gold Card’ Visa For Skilled Foreigners At $1m

United States President Donald Trump, connected Friday, signed an enforcement bid launching a caller migration programme that offers fast-track “Gold Card” visas to foreigners consenting to wage astatine slightest $1 million.

“The Trump Gold Card is here,” a authorities website announced, showcasing a mock-up of the paper embossed with Trump’s photo, signature, and symbols of the bald eagle and the Statue of Liberty, alongside the slogan “Unlock beingness successful America.”

According to the enforcement order, non-Americans who marque a “gift” of astatine slightest $1 cardinal to the Commerce Department volition beryllium eligible for expedited migrant visas, portion corporations tin unafraid Gold Cards by contributing astatine slightest $2 million.

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said 80,000 Gold Cards volition beryllium made disposable nether the programme, which is inactive successful its “implementation phase.” Approved applicants, aft paying a $15,000 vetting interest and undergoing screening by the State and Homeland Security Departments, volition beryllium granted lawful imperishable residency, replacing the EB-1 and EB-2 greenish paper categories for radical of “exceptional ability.”

“You tin beryllium exceptional worth for the United States of America by contributing $1 cardinal to the United States of America. That’s a beauteous bully anticipation that they’re highly valuable,” Lutnick told reporters. He added that wrong a month, “the different visa Green Card categories are apt to beryllium suspended, and this volition beryllium the exemplary that radical tin travel into the country.”

The medication is besides weighing a $5 cardinal ‘Platinum Card’, which would let holders to walk up to 270 days successful the US without paying taxes connected overseas income. Lutnick stressed, however, that the Platinum Card would not supply a pathway to citizenship and would necessitate legislature approval.

In a abstracted order, Trump imposed an further $100,000 interest for applicants seeking H-1B visas, a non-immigrant programme utilized by US companies to prosecute highly skilled overseas workers for up to six years.

The alteration could importantly reshape the H-1B program. While critics reason it suppresses U.S. wages, supporters, including large tech firms specified arsenic Amazon, which files thousands of applications annually, accidental it is captious for filling endowment gaps.

Asked however tech companies would respond to the steep caller fee, Trump insisted, “I deliberation they’re going to beryllium precise happy. And we’re going to beryllium capable to support radical successful our state that are going to beryllium precise productive people, and successful galore cases, these companies are going to wage a batch of wealth for that, and they’re precise blessed astir it.”