Donald Trump does not have to issue Executive Orders to be in the news. In what is seen as a master-stroke, Trump has come up with his Gold Card. If someone has $5 million to cough up, there is a visa for entry into the US. It is not an automatic American passport but an eventual pathway to one. In the process the Republican administration has rid of the 35-year old Employment Based investor visa (EB 5) on the pretext of it being “nonsense” and a “fraud”.
Naturally the Gold Card has attracted international attention even in the absence of details which are supposed to come in about two weeks. All that the President has said for starters is that the price tag of $5 million is a “bargain”, and going the distance in taking care of the American deficit which is in the neighbourhood of $36 trillion.
The devil undoubtedly is in the expectations of the Gold Card holders other than an expensive stamp in their passports. Little mention of whether the Gold Card holders would have to do anything besides getting a permanent residency, a pathway to citizenship and American passport. The EB 5 visa had the stipulation of creating jobs in the US but the price tag was only about one-fifth of the new Card.
The Gold Card will be coordinated by the United States Customs and Immigration Services (USCIS), the Departments of State and Commerce. But no word at the time of announcement of what the expectations from the world’s wealthy or what it is they would be contributing other than writing a one-time cheque. But the administration has made it known that the Gold Card would not have the involvement of the United States Congress which normally determines issues of immigration and pathways to citizenship.
Vetting of applications
The opening up the potential of a Gold Card does not mean that oligarchs from Russia would be rushing to park their yachts in Florida, New York or California even if President Trump has made it clear that he is not against them as he knows “many” good ones. It does not mean that anyone flaunting $5 million can get an easy entry, as the administration has said vetting an applicant is very much there which hopefully would include the method of payment of the visa fee. Of immediate concern, especially to those from India, is in what all these would mean to those in the queue for permanent residency in the categories including EB and H-1B that already face backlogs
The biggest challenge to the Trump White House comes not from those who fear that America is giving a back-seat to talent but from the very own crowd of the President that frowns upon racial diversity. Those egging Trump for a more exclusive “white” America will be aghast at the prospect of “brown” and “black” money bags descending from Central and Latin America, Middle East, Asia and Africa. After all, one of the objectives of the hardliners and extremists is to gut as many immigrant categories as possible, not in the creation of newer ones.
For a President whose main aim is to put more money into the pocket of Americans, the latest initiative is one of those ways if it ultimately measures up to reducing the nation’s deficit. A way to silence critics in the Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement is to ensure that the idea is fine-tuned well to meet the challenges of legal immigration, not in having older problems surface with new labels down the road.
The writer is a senior journalist who has reported from Washington DC on North America and United Nations
