Trump’s new visa plan promises citizenship - If you can pay the price

US President Donald Trump plans to sell residency in the form of a Gold Card - for $5 million. The expensive visa would replace the current “EB-5” immigrant investor visa for foreign job-creators, which Trump’s camp have called “fraud”.

The EB-5 visa is, as things stand, open to foreigners who invest around $1m in a company employing at least 10 people.

With that investment comes a pathway to citizenship in the form of an immediate green card, something that normally takes months or even years to achieve. “You have a green card, this is a gold card,” Trump told reporters on Tuesday, adding that “it’s going to give you green card privileges plus it’s going to be a route to (American) citizenship.”

Trump’s Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said the current programme is is priced too low, and is “full of nonsense”.

“The EB-5 program [was] make-believe and fraud, and it was a way to get a green card that was low-price. So the president said, rather than having this sort of ridiculous EB-5 program, we’re going to end the EB-5 program,” Lutnick said.

Trump hints at Russian oligarchs obtaining golden visa

And now, Trump has made it clear who will be eligible for a golden ticket to the US: “It’ll be people with money,” he said recently.

In fact, the President went further, expanding on the ‘who’ question and saying that “I know some Russian oligarchs who are very nice people.”

‘Trump is massively underselling what the US has to offer’

Kristin Surak, associate professor of political sociology at the London School of Economics told Al-Jazeera that Trump’s new idea would be “the most expensive golden visa option in the world”, but it still needs to work.

“There will still be demand for this if the pathway is fast and smooth. Strangely, Trump is massively underselling what the US has to offer.”

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