Foreigners who have $5 million to spend and are interested in living and working in the United States will soon have an in.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told Axios on Wednesday that a “gold card” website allowing people to buy their way to permanent residency is expected to be launched within a week.
“The details of that will come soon after, but people can start to register,” Lutnick said during the outlet’s “Building the Future” event, adding that more information about the program will be available in the coming weeks through trumpcard.gov.
Lutnick said the card could help the U.S. pay off its federal debt, which currently sits at around $36 trillion, according to the U.S. Treasury Fiscal Data. The update on the card comes as the House passed President Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” early Wednesday morning, which the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated would increase the deficit by $3.8 trillion over the next decade.
“God forbid something bad happens, you come to the airport in America and the person in immigration says, ‘Welcome home,’” Lutnick said.
President Donald Trump originally announced the idea of a gold card in February as a way to replace the country’s existing EB-5 Immigrant Investor Program, which allows investors, their spouses and unmarried children under the age of 21 to become green card holders. In March, Trump said the visas will be given to “the most successful job creating people from all over the world” during his joint session of Congress.
The following month, Trump showed a physical example of the card while on Air Force One, declaring himself as the first buyer.
“For $5 million, this could be yours,” Trump said while moving the card from side to side.
During the event, Lutnick said that there already has been an interest from buyers looking to join the visa program, citing that he was “selling” cards while on Trump’s recent trip to the Middle East.
“Basically, everyone I meet who is not an American is going to want to buy this card if they have the fiscal capacity,” he said.
Many immigration experts, though, have said the proposal is more complicated, CNN reported, because Congress would have to create a new program by passing a law.
The gold card stands in stark contrast to Trump’s hard stance on immigration ever since he campaigned for elected office.
On Jan. 20, just after being sworn in for a second term, President Donald Trump suspended the asylum system as part of his wide-ranging crackdown on illegal immigration, issuing a series of executive orders designed to stop what he called the “invasion” of the United States.
What asylum-seekers now find, according to lawyers, activists and immigrants, is a murky, ever-changing situation with few obvious rules, where people can be deportedto countries they know nothing about after fleeting conversations with immigration officials while others languish in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody.