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Why Donald Trump's ambitious ‘Gold card' scheme may never become reality
US President Donald Trump in April unveiled his $5 million 'Gold card'.
The card, which comes emblazoned with a portrait of Trump, was revealed by the president on Air Force One.
Trump has said that those who pay $5 million for the card can get green card privileges and a route to citizenship.
Trump claimed that he was the first to buy the card and that the second would be delivered soon.
However, now experts are saying that the 'Gold card' scheme may never come to fruition.
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They are advising their high-net-worth clients to stay clear from the card entirely.
Many countries are now offering such 'golden visas'.
But what do we know about the card? Why are experts warning against it?
Let's take a closer look:
What we know about the card
The 'Gold card' scheme is thought to be a replacement for the US' EB-5 visa scheme.
Under that programme, those who invest $1.8 million (Rs 15 crore) in America are given a pathway to citizenship.
The White House even launched a website for those interested in the card.
Trump and his officials have claimed millions of people want to buy the card.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick claimed that the card will be made from real gold.
He said 70,000 people had already signed up for the card.
He also claimed around 37 million people around the world could be interested in the card.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick claimed that the card will be made from real gold. Reuters
They have pointed out that just 200,000 such cards being sold would result in an influx of $1 trillion for the US treasury.
Trump himself claimed that the US could 'sell maybe a million of these cards, maybe more than that."
He added that the sale of 1 million 'Gold cards' would raise $5 trillion and that the sale of 10 million cards could bring in $50 trillion.
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Trump and his surrogates claimed this money could be used to pay down the national debt.
Why are experts warning against it?
Experts say there are red flags everywhere.
The first is that Trump has no authority to do this.
Under the constitution, only Congress can make such laws when it pertains to citizenship.
Congress has not acted to change these visa and green card rules in decades.
'There's no lawful basis to do this, and if they do it anyway, they're going to get sued, and they're almost certainly going to lose,' Doug Rand, senior adviser to the former director of US Citizenship and Immigration Services under the Biden administration, told The Washington Post.
George Fishman, a senior legal fellow at the Centre for Immigration Studies, added 'I'm very dubious it can be done without an act of Congress.'
They say the president and his advisors have seemingly taken no steps as to begin replacing the investor programme with this card.
'I have been confused from the start about how the Gold Card is meant to work and how it fits into our immigration laws, and this is a continuation of strangeness,' Julia Gelatt, associate director of the US Immigration Policy Program at the Migration Policy Institute, told Forbes.
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Many countries including the UAE are offering their own 'golden visa' scheme.
'Maybe President Trump is exploring some executive authorities that he sees as allowing him, or the administration, to create immigration pathways outside of our legal immigration system,' Gelatt added. 'But certainly the executive branch doesn't have the authority to create a new visa without Congress' authority.'
Even if the Supreme Court sides with Trump and suddenly decides to give him such powers, the president and his associates face another such problem.
Not enough rich people
According to Henley and Partners, there are only around 30,000 centimillionaires (those above $100 million) in the entire world.
Around a third of these are in the United States itself.
Just around 2.76 lakh are worth $30 million or more, as per data firm Altrata.
In short, this is an extremely shallow pool from which to draw water.
Experts say few people even in that bracket are likely to apply for this card.
'In my 34 years of experience, I have rarely seen anybody spend more than 10 per cent of their net worth on an immigration program, and generally it's more like 5 per cent,' Nuri Katz, founder of Apex Capital Partners, told Forbes. 'So you've got to be worth $50 million to $100 million in order to be able to afford this.
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Dominic Volek, group head of private clients at Henley & Partners, told CNBC he thinks around 2,000 such 'Gold cards' could be sold every year.
Simply put, there are nowhere enough people in the world who have the money to buy one million or even 10 million such cards.
Experts say they are giving their clients the best advice they can – to wait and see.
As Philadelphia-based immigration attorney Ron Klasko told the Washington Post, 'Why would I want to do that before I know if it's a law, what the law says, what the requirements are, what information the form is going to ask me for, what documents I have to produce, what the terms and conditions are'.
With inputs from agencies
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