Trump’s $5 million Gold Card offers the rich a fast lane to residency

Good assessment of this harebrained scheme, unlikely to attract the worthy. Lack of details on how it would work also cause for concern. Silver’s comment at the end sounds about right:

Lawyers’ phones are ringing with wealthy foreigners wanting to know more about how to score a “Gold Card” – a glorified green card that would allow them to live and work in the U.S. without going through the usual hassle or red tape. Apparently, the card’s $5 million price tag is not scaring off the jet-setters looking to make the U.S. home. Or at least one of their homes.

“$5 million to these people is jet fuel cost. It means nothing to them,” says Matthew Kolken, an immigration lawyer from Buffalo, NY, who has Canadian clients asking about the Gold Card. The clients declined to comment, but Kolken says he thinks the Gold Card is underpriced, if anything, considering the time and hassle it would save foreign multi-millionaires.

“It allows them to potentially buy their way into the United States,” says Kolken. “They would just be able to throw down their Amex Black Card.”

And plenty are interested.

“I have one from India, one from Pakistan, and two from Egypt. And a colleague who has a few [clients] from Russia,” says immigration attorney Mona Shah. Most are drawn to the offer of an express lane to permanent residency, plus more favorable tax implications; foreign nationals living in the U.S. on a Gold Card would only be taxed on their U.S. earnings.

Shah says the security — and the status — of being able to flash that “Gold Card” to get waved into the U. S. is also a big draw, as well as what Trump has described as “privileges – plus.” The president hasn’t elaborated on what that means, but Shah says clients are imagining VIP perks that range from easy loans to a special fast-track lane through Customs at U.S. airports.

“They seem to believe that this is going to be some kind of separating first class from economy class, and that this is some kind of ‘red carpet’ visa and they will be treated like a VIP everywhere,” says Shah.

But whether any such perks – or obligations – will come with the Gold Card remains far from clear, and the administration is not offering any more details some three months after President Donald Trump first started hyping the idea.

“It’s a great thing, the Gold Card. Remember the words ‘the Gold Card!'” he proclaimed to reporters in the Oval Office in February. “Wealthy people will be coming into our country by buying this card. 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, never been done before anything like this.”

Trump added that he’d be happy to call it the “Trump Gold Card.” In fact officials say a government website is now using the name TrumpCard.gov, and Trump has since revealed a sample card with a picture of his face on the front.

Trump has said the proceeds of the Gold Card would go to help pay down the budget deficit, and possibly even chip away at the massive $36.2 trillion national debt.

“We’ll be able to sell maybe a million of these cards, maybe more than that,” Trump said. “A million cards would be worth $5 trillion. And if you sell 10 million of the cards, that’s a total of $50 trillion. We have $35 trillion in debt. That’d be nice.”

But most immigration experts and attorneys see that figure as wildly unrealistic. They expect sales to be in the low thousands.

Immigration lawyer Darren Silver says he’s received a flurry of calls about the Gold Card, but interest wanes as soon as he explains this program is not like the existing EB-5 visa program, which requires an investment of something closer to $1 million in a business that creates jobs or $800,000 for investments in a lower-income ‘targeted employment area.’

Silver says his clients are surprised when he tells them the Gold Card is not an investment that might offer any returns. It’s effectively just a donation.

“I had to explain to them, ‘you’re gifting the U.S. government $5 million. That’s all you’re doing.'” says Silver. “And once I explain that to them, they’re out.”

Source: Trump’s $5 million Gold Card offers the rich a fast lane to residency