In order to significantly benefit Indian graduates and investors, recently the US President Donald Trump has announced a new visa program that will offer a “gold card” with a potential pathway to US citizenship for $5 million.
US Launching Gold Card To Earn US Citizenship
This initiative is expected to generate significant revenue, which is set to replace the existing EB-5 visa program, according to Trump.
This appears to be a new opportunity for Indian graduates, Trump said while speaking about this program at his first cabinet meeting of his second term on Thursday,
Besides this the new program would allow American companies to hire Indian graduates from US universities, Trump said.
Further highlighting that the current immigration policies have prevented skilled professionals, particularly from India, from staying in the country after completing their education.
Trump said, “A person comes from India, China, Japan, lots of different places, and they go to Harvard, the Wharton School of Finance… They are making job offers, but the offer is immediately rescinded because you have no idea whether that person can stay in the country.”
Wanting Productive People
Moving ahead, he acknowledged that many of these graduates return to their home countries and become successful entrepreneurs.
While pointing out the economic loss for the US, Trump said, “They 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.”
“We have to be able to get people in the country, and we want people that are productive people,” he added.
So far, there are several countries around the world that have citizenship or residency-by-investment programs.
For instance, European countries like Portugal offer “golden visas,” granting permanent residency to foreigners who invest at least €500,000 ($524,000) in a qualifying fund.
Meant For Revenue Generation
According to Trump, the gold card visa is a potential source of income for the US.
Further adding, “If we sell a million, that’s $5 trillion dollars,” this revenue could help in reducing national debt.
This program is meant to replace the EB-5 visa, which currently grants residency to investors who invest at least $1 million in businesses that create jobs.
Further, Trump claims that the gold card will attract wealthy individuals who will contribute to the US economy.
He said, “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.”
Moving ahead, expressing the confidence in the demand for the new visa, Trump said, “I happen to think it’ll sell like crazy. It’s a market. But we’ll know very soon.”
In the meantime, Congress determines qualifications for US citizenship, but interestingly, the president said that the “gold cards” would not require congressional approval.
