On Tuesday February 25, 2025, President Trump enthusiastically explained his plan to issue a new Gold Card that would allow as many as one million investors to invest “about $5 million” to obtain a green card leading to U.S. citizenship. “With ten million investors”, he calculated “the US could pay off its entire national debt and still have a $15 trillion surplus.” Pretty cool.
Let’s set aside the fact that this was not an Executive Order, and merely an Oval Office musing that may have been designed as a headline grabbing endeavor to give out between one million and ten million green cards to high net worth investors.
Since each investor has on average has about 2.5 additional family members, that is spouses and children, meaning that he is thinking of admitting as many as thirty million new investor immigrants.
What President Trump Got Right
President Trump’s “Gold Card” U.S. resident concept removes the biggest problem with the 35 year old congressionally mandated EB-5 green card immigrant investor program. That is, it lifts the highly restrictive annual quota. With only 10,000 visas statutorily allocated annually under the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1990, the program admits only about 3,000 investor families every year since minor children and spouses are counted as investors. This has creating long waiting lines that have discouraged investors from India, China, and Vietnam, the three countries providing the most investors. Thousands of Chinese investors from 2015 and 2016 are still waiting patiently, even though many of their children are aging out and that was the main reason they applied.
The program is good for America because it creates thousands of direct and indirect jobs and direct foreign investment can help alleviate our national debt.
If I heard correctly, the President said something about exempting these gold card holders from global tax. Now that is really smart because the U.S. is one of the few countries that taxes residents on global income. Scrapping global taxation would be a huge draw card for these high net worth investors, many of whom have avoided migrating to the U.S. on account of our unique global tax regimen.
What President Trump Got Wrong
The Immigration and Nationality Act and the Congress regulate immigration policy. The Executive is charged with administering the laws, not creating them. We have an immigration statute, and detailed laws and regulations. As of today, we have yet to see any legislative proposals nor have we seen any Executive Order. An Executive Order is neither a law nor a regulation and is merely a guideline to the Executive Branch that administers the law. Such an EO, if issued, is not going to override the very detailed and rigorous statute that Congress has passed that regulates the issuance of every single residence permit or green card.
An investment amount of about $5 million is not going to work and at best you will get a few hundred investors. Apple is not going to “pay $5 million for a gold card even if a student comes top of their class at Wharton or Harvard.” In fact pricing the gold card at $5 million means it will be a giant flop. However priced correctly at $1,000,000 or maybe $1,250,000 for a premium processing fast green card, will work and attract thousands and thousands of high net worth investors that will create tens of thousands of jobs at zero cost the U.S. taxpayer. Established in 1990, the program was generally a flop until 1993, when Congress created the Regional Center program allowing indirect job creation and a reduced amount of $500,000. In March 2022, Senator Grassley’s (R-Iowa) introduced the new Reform and Integrity Act which provides extensive oversight, and extensive integrity measures. This law permits an $800,000 investment in a rural, high unemployment or infrastructure project. Hats off to Senator Grassley, this is a good bill and while only a few dozen visas have actually been issued after three years, several thousand high net worth immigrants have lined up and filed petitions investing billions annually. These immigrants are mainly from India, China, Vietnam, Korea, Taiwan, Brazil and a few other countries. Demand from the rest of the world has been dismal because very few have that sort of money to invest, and very few are willing to do so. The main draw card is the opportunity to study at America’s top universities but even that drawcard is failing as the UK has now, for the first time overtaken the US as destination of first choice for most international students.
Conclusion:
President Trump you on the right track here and we understand that maybe “about $5 million” may be your opening bid. However, priced right, this gold card investor program can augment the EB-5 program. Together they will attract billions, and hopefully trillions in foreign direct investment, and most importantly, help create thousands of jobs without costing taxpayers a penny, and this can help reduce the national debt.
The current Regional Cetner investor green card program expires September 2027 and needs to be extended. This Gold Card endeavor will create as surge of demand for the $800,000 green card investor. There is now a window of opportunity for investors to file before the price goes up, and maybe too far up for almost all investors.
We get it, gone is the immigration concept of “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free” that helped build this great nation. It does make sense to admit a reasonable number of investor immigrants who create jobs and bring direct foreign investment. But please remember, we also need to admit, the “best and the brightest” and we also need skilled and unskilled workers because these immigrants are not going to work picking crops or in slaughterhouses.
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