New York: US President Donald Trump said American companies would now be able to hire Indian graduates from US universities under the new ‘gold card’ citizenship initiative. This is a pathway to US citizenship for wealthy foreign investors willing to pay USD 5 million.
“A person comes from India, China, Japan, lots of different places, and they go to Harvard, the Wharton School of Finance… they are made job offers, but the offer is immediately rescinded because you have no idea whether that person can stay in the country,” he said. “They (foreign students) go back to India, or they go back to the country where they came from, and they open up a company, and they become billionaires. They’re employing thousands of people,” he said.
The gold card program is being pitched as a premium version of the existing Green Card. It offers long-term residency and a pathway to citizenship. The initiative is also being framed as a way to generate revenue for the US economy. “If we sell a million, that’s USD 5 trillion dollars,” Trump said, indicating that the money could be used to pay off national debt.
The plan would replace the existing EB-5 visa program. The existing program grants residency to investors who spend at least USD 1 million on businesses that employ ten or more people. “They’ll be wealthy, and they’ll be successful, and they’ll be spending a lot of money and paying a lot of taxes and employing a lot of people, and we think it’s going to be extremely successful,” he said, claiming that the gold card will be a game-changer.
How is gold card visa different from EB-5?
Under the EB-5 scheme, foreign investors must invest between USD 800,000 and USD 1.05 million in US businesses while also creating at least 10 jobs. Additionally, applicants face a long wait of 5–7 years for a green card.
In comparison, the ‘gold card’ visa significantly raises the financial threshold to USD 5 million-five times the EB-5 requirement. It offers a much faster and more streamlined path to US residency. The new scheme eliminates the job creation mandate.
