The “Gold Card” visa program, which President Donald Trump announced on Tuesday, could face challenges as this type of scheme is particularly appealing to criminals, according to Transparency International, the German NGO.
Newsweek has contacted the White House out of hours via email for comment.
Why It Matters
The gold visa scheme has been revoked in a number of countries, such a Cyprus and the U.K, over concerns about the kinds of people obtaining the visas, including Russian oligarchs and criminals.
The biggest demand for the gold visa schemes has traditionally come from China, the Middle East and Russia, according to a professor at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE).
What To Know
The president announced the “gold” visas, which cost applicants $5 million, would replace the current investor visa, known as EB-5, for those who want to invest in the U.S.
Trump said he hoped the new category would help to create jobs for the best and brightest currently studying at U.S. colleges, speculating that anywhere between one and 10 million Gold Cards could be offered.
There is golden visa legislation in place in more than 100 countries around the world, according to the London-based migration consultancy Henley & Partners.
They are designed to attract investment into a country, and have been found to make a difference to a nation’s GDP, as Associate Professor of Political Sociology at LSE Dr. Kristin Surak wrote. She noted that for Greece and Portugal in 2022, the programs brought in the equivalent of 10 to 15 per cent of foreign direct investment (FDI), while for Cyprus, the scheme accounted for nearly 5 per cent of GDP.
However, the Gold Card visa scheme has been scrapped by a number of countries in recent years. After the program was brought into the U.K. in 2008, the government halted the scheme in February 2022, as it was discovered that the visa gave “corrupt elites” opportunities and access to the country, the BBC reported.
The U.K.’s former Home Secretary Suella Braverman said in a statement to Parliament that a review of those who had obtained the visas showed that some “were potentially at high risk of having obtained wealth through corruption or other illicit financial activity, and/or being engaged in serious and organized crime.”
Last year in Cyprus, many of the revoked gold visa passports belonged to Russian oligarchs, said local news outlet Politis. The passports were revoked on the basis that applications had contained false statements and misleading information and that the investors had criminal records.
As a result of the scheme’s proven attraction to “criminals and the corrupt,” the nongovernmental, German organization Transparency International has called for the schemes to be banned or be regulated with “adequate checks in place.”
But Dr. Surak, told Newsweek: “The U.S. is such an enormous country, both economically and in terms of migration flows, that the problems that golden visas might bring will barely move the needle.”
She added: “In short, [Trump] won’t run into many problems and certainly not any sorts of problems that aren’t already there within the standard immigration screening procedures.”
Dr. Surak said it was “surprising” that Trump had set the cost of the visas at $5 million.
“At a projected $5 million investment per application, the economic benefits will hardly be noticed in the U.S. economy. Demand for U.S. citizenship among global elites is so high that if [Trump] were to charge $50 million per application, it would still see demand,” she said.
What People Are Saying
President Donald Trump said as he announced the Gold Card visa scheme: “We’re gonna be selling a gold card. You have a green card, this is a gold card. We’re gonna put a price on that card of about $5 million and that’s going to give you green card privileges, plus, it’s gonna be a route to citizenship, and wealthy people will be coming into our country.”
Dr. Surak, told Newsweek: “The U.S. won’t have the same issues as the smaller and weaker countries that have already established golden passport programs since the U.S. has traditionally been the key backroom player. It calls a lot of the shots in the global market for citizenship by investment.”
What’s Next
While Trump said the program could be up and running within two weeks, the power to create new visa categories lies with Congress, which would need to create legislation, pass it, and then send it to Trump’s desk for approval.
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