Donald Trump announces sale of permanent residency titles "gold card" for 5 million dollars
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Russian oligarchs, most of whom have been sanctioned by the United States since Russia's invasion of Ukraine, will potentially be able to apply for the program.
Skip the adDonald Trump announced Tuesday, February 25, that the United States would soon begin selling "about five million dollars" worth of permanent residency titles, dubbed "Trump gold cards," modeled on green cards. "Rich people will come to this country by buying this card. They will be rich, and they will be successful and they will spend a lot of money and pay a lot of taxes and employ a lot of people," the American president told reporters from the White House.
Russian oligarchs, most of whom have been sanctioned by the United States since Russia invaded Ukraine, will potentially be eligible to apply for the program. "I know some Russian oligarchs who are very good people," Trump said. "It's possible" they could be eligible, he added.
A similar program to the one announced today, the EB-5, already exists in the United States. A permanent resident green card can be obtained by foreign nationals who make investments of a certain amount in the United States. But according to Howard Lutnick, the US Secretary of Commerce, this existing program was subject to too much fraud, and represented "a way to get a green card at a low cost" . So he announced that the United States would end this EB-5 program. "We will replace it with the 'Trump gold card' " , he said in the Oval Office alongside the president, who campaigned in 2024 on strengthening restrictions on illegal immigration.
According to the American president, the "gold card" will allow "to bring in people in computer science who create jobs, very high-level people." "I think companies will pay to bring people," he said. "So Apple and all these companies that want people to come work for them will be able to buy a card," Donald Trump added. Clarifying that cardholders would not be citizens, the Republican billionaire boasted that they would still pay taxes in the United States. He suggested that the United States could benefit from "the sale of maybe a million of these cards, maybe more than that."
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