Trump’s Doomed “Gold Card” Hustle
The new pay-to-play immigration scheme already headed for court battles.
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s latest immigration move is being slammed as both legally dubious and economically incoherent. On Sept. 19, Trump signed an executive order creating a “Gold Card” visa program that allows wealthy foreigners to buy U.S. green cards for $1 million — or $2 million if sponsored by a corporation.
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The administration claims the program will “realign Federal immigration policy with the Nation’s interests” by pumping billions into the Treasury while expediting visas for “high-value contributors” to American society. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has boasted the program could raise $100 billion for debt reduction and tax cuts .
But immigrant investor advocates, business leaders, and legal experts see something else: a policy designed on shaky statutory ground that directly undercuts the longstanding EB-5 Immigrant Investor Program.
The American Immigrant Investor Alliance (AIIA), which represents foreign nationals who already invest in U.S. projects that create jobs, warned that the Gold Card competes directly with EB-5 and could collapse under legal scrutiny. “The Gold Card program lacks any statutory authorization,” AIIA said, adding that its attempt to shoehorn million-dollar gifts into existing EB-1 and EB-2 visa categories is “arbitrary and capricious as well as contrary to law”.
Unlike EB-5, which requires investments that create at least 10 full-time U.S. jobs and often allows investors to recoup capital, the Gold Card demands an unrecoverable “gift” to the U.S. Treasury. Critics argue it will attract the same pool of immigrant investors — but with zero job-creation benefit.
The White House fact sheet bills the move as part of Trump’s crusade to dismantle what he calls “Biden’s lax immigration policies” and to privilege “successful entrepreneurs, investors, and businessmen” willing to write million-dollar checks .
The policy is also colliding with Trump’s new $100,000 annual fee on H-1B visas — a change that tech companies warn could cripple their ability to recruit top engineers from abroad. Business-minded Republicans, including Trump’s AI czar David Sacks, worry the Gold Card and H-1B crackdown will undermine U.S. competitiveness against China in artificial intelligence and other cutting-edge sectors.
Legal challenges appear imminent. Immigration attorneys note that Congress, not the president, controls visa allocations. Federal courts have already signaled hostility to executive attempts to rewrite the Immigration and Nationality Act by fiat. “The program will probably be enjoined before a single Gold Card is issued,” an immigration lawyer told Migrant Insider over the weekend.
MY TAKE: For now, the Trump administration is selling the Gold Card like a high-end hustle, complete with a government-issued card bearing the president’s likeness. Whether anyone actually receives one before a federal judge slaps it down seems highly unlikely.
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