No to ‘Gold Card,’ No to More EB-5 Visas

In mid-February, President Donald Trump told reporters that his administration plans to sell a $5 million “gold card” that will provide wealthy non-citizens U.S. residency and eventual citizenship. President Trump said the card will give buyers the same privileges as green card holders, who have permanent residency and U.S. work authorization. The president further said the wealthy people who buy the card would be investing in the U.S. by “spending a lot of money, paying a lot of taxes and employing a lot of people.” The card, President Trump predicted, would debut within the next two weeks as it would not need congressional approval to create the card “because we’re not doing citizenship, we’re doing the card.” President Trump’s self-imposed deadline passed weeks ago, and the gold card dropped out of the news, mostly because despite Trump’s statement to the contrary, Congress would have to pass legislation to convert his concept into reality. The Executive Branch has neither the power of the purse nor the authority to write immigration law.

President Trump predicted that the administration could sell thousands of gold cards that would generate billions in income to help pay down the $36 trillion national debt. The ill-conceived, doomed gold card proposal was floated with a sound idea---to eliminate the fraud-ridden EB-5 visa. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said the card could theoretically replace the EB-5 program which in fiscal year 2024 reached an all-time high, 12,055. The largest receiving countries were China, Vietnam, India, Taiwan, and South Korea.

Created by Congress in 1990, the controversial EB-5 visa, known by critics as the citizenship-for-sale visa, allows foreign nationals, their wives, and children under age 21 to obtain a green card if they invest as little as $800,000 in a USCIS-approved but not guaranteed investment that meets certain job creation standards. Each investment should create 10 or more jobs for individuals other than the investor’s family. But these need not be actually direct jobs; the convoluted system allows the calculation of indirect job creation to round out the 10 new jobs. Lutnick blasted the EB-5 program, calling it “full of nonsense” and “a way to get a green card that was low priced.”

President Trump won’t have any more luck in canceling the EB-5 than he will in creating his gold card. The EB-5 program is congressionally approved, and under the EB-5 Reform and Integrity Act of 2022, was reauthorized through September 30, 2027. Any changes to the program would require congressional approval, not a high legislative priority

Americans are stuck with the EB-5 until at least 2027, but the program deserves to be scrapped. Eventually granting citizenship, work permits, access to free public education and affirmative benefits to Chinese citizens as well as other foreign nationals and their families does not benefit Americans. In the 35 years of its existence, the EB-5 has few if any bona fide successes to point to. On the other hand, several dozen EB-5 projects have incurred criminal federal, civil or state criminal charges. The EB-5’s loopholes are so easily manipulated that in 2015 Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, Virginia governor Terry McAuliffe and then-U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services director Alejandro Mayorkas were implicated in malfeasance charges made to the Department of Justice. An Inspector General’s report found that Reid, McAuliffe and Mayorkas behaved inappropriately in pushing for favoritism. Despite the evidence against the three, no charges were brought.

The U.S. should issue fewer visas, especially those that include employment authorization. A reminder to President Trump: your focus on securing the border is well and good. Now, Mr. President, turn your attention toward ending runaway visa fraud. All the visas that the federal government issues, every single one invites scamsters and, at least potentially, hurts Americans.

Joe Guzzardi is an Institute for Sound Public Policy analyst. Contact him at jguzzardi@ifspp.org