President Donald Trump has said the US will start selling “gold cards”, which like permanent residency green cards would give foreign people a route to American citizenship, but at a price tag of $5 million.
Mr Trump said the programme would give wealthy people incentive to move to America, invest, pay taxes and create US jobs. He said the scheme would help to reduce America's deficit.
The “Trump gold card” will “give you green card privileges, plus it's going to be a route to citizenship, and wealthy people will be coming into our country by buying this card", he said in the Oval Office on Tuesday.
“So they'll be able to pay $5 million to the US government, go through vetting, of course. Going to make sure they are wonderful, world-class, global citizens.”
Green cards are normally obtained by getting a sponsorship through work, a relative or by marriage. But many countries including the UAE offer investor visas.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said the gold card would replace the EB-5 visa in two weeks. The EB-5s was created by Congress in 1990 to generate foreign investment and is available to people who spend about $1 million on a company that employs at least 10 people.
Mr Lutnick said the gold card would raise the price of admission for investors and do away with the fraud and “nonsense” that he said characterise the EB-5 programme.
Mr Trump, who began his second term in office last month, has made reducing immigration a main focus of his policy goals. He has pledged to conduct the largest deportation campaign in the nation's history and slash foreign worker visa programmes, saying they undermine US security and take away American jobs.
Deportations have so far been directed at undocumented migrants, particularly from Central and South America, many of whom entered through the southern US border. He also ended Temporary Protection for tens of thousands of Haitians, putting them at risk of deportation.
When asked whether Russian oligarchs would qualify for the gold cards, Mr Trump said: “Yeah, possibly.”