President Donald Trump says his “gold cards” will be available for wealthy foreigners — and U.S. companies that want to hire skilled immigrants.
That could help eliminate “brain waste,” a term coined to describe a nation or state’s failure to utilize skilled immigrants, such as people with college degrees or certificates from a trade school. The Migration Policy Insitute found that some 2.1 million college-educated immigrants in the U.S. were either unemployed or had low-skilled jobs as of 2022, according to a recent report.
On Wednesday, Trump said that he wanted immigrants who attend top colleges like Harvard University or Yale University to stay in the U.S. after graduation.
“They’re made job offers but the offer is immediately rescinded because you have no idea whether or not that person can stay in the country,” Trump said during the first cabinet meeting of his second term. “These companies can go and buy a gold card and they can use it as a matter of recruitment.”
“At the same time, the company is using that money to pay down debt,” he continued, naming Apple (AAPL-2.80%) as an example of a firm that could benefit. In Trump’s hypothetical, a company like Apple would buy five licenses and hire as many people.
That adds another dimension to the plan Trump said he was considering on Tuesday when he described selling what Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick called the “Trump Gold Card.” Wealthy individuals would be able to spend $5 million to apply to become lawful permanent residents under the plan, which Trump said would be rolled out in two weeks.
The cards will modify the EB-5 immigrant investor visa, Lutnick said Wednesday. The current program gives residency to foreigners who invest at least $1.05 million in a new business that creates jobs, or $800,000 in a rural area, infrastructure project, or an area with high unemployment. The new visas won’t have a job requirement, Trump said, comparing the process of a company hiring from a college or elsewhere to “paying an athlete a bonus.”
“The biggest complaint I get from companies… is the fact that they can’t have any longevity with people,” Trump said. “This way they pretty much have unlimited longevity.”
Lutnick said that 200,000 purchases of gold cards would be worth $1 trillion “to pay down our debt” and help the Trump administration balance the federal budget. Trump advertised more dramatic hypotheticals that saw the administration sell 1 million or 10 million gold cards.
“I don’t know that we’re gonna sell that many. Maybe we won’t sell many at all,” Trump said. “But I think we’re gonna sell a lot….no other country can do this.”
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