Latest news with #StatuteofLiberty
Boston Globe
16-04-2025
- Business
- Boston Globe
Musk's team is building a system to sell ‘Gold Card' immigrant visas
In late February, Trump announced his idea for a gold card to give 'very high-level people' a 'route to citizenship.' Advertisement The president and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick provided few details at the time about who would qualify for the program but noted that it would replace the EB-5 visa, which grants permanent residence to foreign nationals willing to invest in U.S. businesses. That program provided green cards to individuals who invested either $800,000 or $1.05 million, creating at least 10 jobs for American workers. It raised about $4 billion for the federal government last year. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up The gold card project is being led from the DOGE side by Marko Elez and Edward Coristine, who have been working on it since at least last month. Elez and Coristine have met with officials at various agencies that oversee facets of the visa and immigrant vetting process to understand which existing processes can be incorporated into their new system. Advertisement The State Department referred requests for comment to the White House. The White House and Department of Homeland Security did not respond to requests for comment. Lutnick said on a podcast last month that he had sold 1,000 of the visas 'yesterday.' But a person close to the project said no money had been exchanged yet. 'So if you have a gold card -- which used to be a green card -- you're a permanent resident of America,' the commerce secretary said, suggesting that most holders would not go on to become U.S. citizens. He added, 'They pay $5 million, and they have the right to be an American and the right to be in America as long as they're good people and they're vetted and they can't break the law.' Musk is building the software 'right now' and the program will be unveiled in two weeks, Lutnick added. Earlier this month, Trump showed a laminated card, featuring his face, the Statute of Liberty and a bald eagle, to reporters aboard Air Force One and said it would be out in 'less than two weeks.' On Thursday, Lutnick updated the timeline, saying the gold card would be ready 'within a week and a half.' The engineers are still assessing how to create a gold card system that would bypass the normal visa application process, which varies but can take years. They have focused on how to expedite the typical immigrant vetting process, which involves interviews and background checks, and obtain residency approval for high-net-worth applicants within two weeks of applying. Elez faced a storm of controversy earlier this year after The Wall Street Journal linked him to a pseudonymous account on social platform X with racist posts and calls for immigration policy based on eugenics. Advertisement Elez resigned in February after the report, prompting Trump and Vice President JD Vance to call for his rehiring. Since then, Elez has worked for five government agencies, including the Labor Department and Department of Health and Human Services, according to court filings, as well as the Social Security Administration. Before joining Musk's team, Coristine, a 19-year-old who publicly goes by 'Big Balls,' was fired in June 2022 from an internship at Path, an Arizona-based data security company, after 'an internal investigation into the leaking of proprietary company information that coincided with his tenure,' the company said in a statement. Joe Gebbia, a billionaire co-founder of Airbnb, has also been involved with the project, according to people close to the conversations. He joined Musk's team in February, initially to help digitize the federal worker retirement process. Elez, Coristine and Gebbia did not respond to requests for comment. This article originally appeared in
New York Times
16-04-2025
- Business
- New York Times
Musk's Team Is Building a System to Sell ‘Gold Card' Immigrant Visas
Members of Elon Musk's government-slashing task force are building a system for the United States to sell special immigration visas, which President Trump has labeled 'gold cards,' for $5 million apiece. Engineers associated with Mr. Musk's team have been working with employees from the State Department, the Department of Homeland Security and United States Citizenship and Immigration Services to create a website and application process for the visas, according to three people familiar with the discussions and documents seen by The New York Times. The project represents something of a shift in mission for Mr. Musk's team, the Department of Government Efficiency, from its initial task of cutting government costs toward a new goal of generating revenue. In late February, Mr. Trump announced his idea for a gold card to give 'very high-level people' a 'route to citizenship.' The president and his commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, provided few details at the time about who would qualify for the program but noted that it would replace the EB-5 visa, which grants permanent residence to foreign nationals willing to invest in U.S. businesses. That program provided green cards to individuals who invested either $800,000 or $1.05 million, creating at least 10 jobs for American workers. It raised about $4 billion for the federal government last year. The gold card project is being led from the DOGE side by Marko Elez and Edward Coristine, who have been working on it since at least last month. Mr. Elez and Mr. Coristine have met with officials at various agencies that oversee facets of the visa and immigrant vetting process to understand which existing processes can be incorporated into their new system. The State Department referred requests for comment to the White House. The White House and Department of Homeland Security did not respond to requests for comment. Mr. Lutnick said on a podcast last month that he had sold 1,000 of the visas 'yesterday.' But a person close to the project said no money had been exchanged yet. 'So if you have a gold card — which used to be a green card — you're a permanent resident of America,' the commerce secretary said, suggesting that most holders would not go on to become U.S. citizens. He added, 'They pay $5 million, and they have the right to be an American and the right to be in America as long as they're good people and they're vetted and they can't break the law.' Mr. Musk is building the software 'right now' and the program will be unveiled in two weeks, Mr. Lutnick added. Earlier this month, Mr. Trump showed a laminated card, featuring his face, the Statute of Liberty and a bald eagle, to reporters aboard Air Force One and said it would be out in 'less than two weeks.' On Thursday, Mr. Lutnick updated the timeline, saying the gold card would be ready 'within a week and a half.' The engineers are still assessing how to create a gold card system that would bypass the normal visa application process, which varies but can take years. They have focused on how to expedite the typical immigrant vetting process, which involves interviews and background checks, and obtain residency approval for high-net-worth applicants within two weeks of applying. Mr. Elez faced a storm of controversy earlier this year after The Wall Street Journal linked him to a pseudonymous account on X with racist posts and calls for immigration policy based on eugenics. Mr. Elez resigned in February after the report, prompting Mr. Trump and Vice President JD Vance to call for his rehiring. Since then, Mr. Elez has worked for five government agencies, including the Labor Department and Department of Health and Human Services, according to court filings, as well as the Social Security Administration. Before joining Mr. Musk's team, Mr. Coristine, a 19-year-old who publicly goes by 'Big Balls,' was fired in June 2022 from an internship at Path, an Arizona-based data security company, after 'an internal investigation into the leaking of proprietary company information that coincided with his tenure,' the company said in a statement. Joe Gebbia, a billionaire co-founder of Airbnb, has also been involved with the project, according to people close to the conversations. He joined Mr. Musk's team in February, initially to help digitize the federal worker retirement process. Mr. Elez, Mr. Coristine and Mr. Gebbia did not respond to requests for comment.
Yahoo
29-01-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
‘Hold the line, don't resign': Federal workers encourage each other not to accept Trump's buyout offer
The Trump administration has offered a buyout to around 2 million federal employees and claims they can stop working and still receive pay through the end of September, but workers are rallying each other on Reddit to stay onboard, arguing their presence is 'the last line of defense against fascism.' 'We watched this goon try to overthrow the government on live tv four years ago,' one poster, whose comments have been upvoted tens of thousands of times on r/fednews, wrote. 'Now, we are witnessing him try to overthrow it from within.' 'I didn't dedicate years of my life serving this great country to be bullied into quitting my career by a bunch of fascists,' the user, Odd_Rough_9723, wrote. 'We are being led by the same types of people our grandparents fought against in WW2. They don't care about us, regardless of the fact that one-third of us are veterans and many are military family members.' Another popular post about the buyouts is an image of the Statute of Liberty with the slogan, 'Hold the Line! Don't resign!' The chatter online eventually seemed to get Trump ally Elon Musk's attention, who shared a post on social media complaining federal employees waste time at work by complaining on social media. The Trump administration has argued it's seeking to 'get control of government' by wresting power from career federal service workers, who it believes are 'far left, left-wing.' It claims resignations could cut up to 10 percent of the federal workforce and save $100 billion a year. As part of the Trump administration's non-governmental Department of Government Efficiency initiative, Musk has also spoken about encouraging a 'wave of voluntary terminations that we welcome.' The American Federal of Government Employees, a union which represents federal workers, argued the buyouts were hardly voluntary. 'Between the flurry of anti-worker executive orders and policies, it is clear that the Trump administration's goal is to turn the federal government into a toxic environment where workers cannot stay even if they want to,' AFGE National President Everett Kelley said in a statement on Tuesday. Some on the federal workers subreddit argued the mass resignations would have unintended consequences, including harming industries across the world where Trump-aligned 'broligarchs' like Musk do business. 'There are people in my agency that are the best in the world at what they do, and maintain facilities that are an essential backbone to almost all U.S. (and many foreign) industry,' one federal employee wrote. 'Maybe you can replace a body, but you cannot replace a mind. If these people are replaced, it is a loss for the whole country, but will certainly affect the companies these broligarchs own.' Others expressed doubt that the terms of the Trump offer were even real. 'Don't trust this email, there is no guarantee they will pay you, and they most likely won't!' one commenter said. 'Look at what happened to Twitter employees. They want you to quit, show them you won't back down. Solidarity in numbers.' Indeed, there are a number of parallels between the mass layoffs at X/Twitter and the resignation offer. Both involve Musk, and they even share a tagline. In 2022, as X began what would eventually become an 80 percent purge of its workforce, employees received a memo titled, 'Fork in the Road,' the same title the federal Office of Personnel Management is using to describe the Trump buyout offers. As The Independent reported, the X layoffs brought chaos and multiple lawsuits from former staff members, and there's a suggestion there could be more uncertainty to come around the federal buyout plan. Most importantly, it's not clear the Trump administration has the legal authority or funds to even ensure its promises, according to some. 'The president has no authority to make that offer,' Senator Tim Kaine, Democrat of Virginia, argued Tuesday in a floor speech. 'There's no budget line item to pay people who are not showing up for work.' He pointed to Trump's long history of allegedly withholding payment from contractors on his business projects and urged federal employees to decline the buyout. 'Don't be fooled,' Kaine continued. 'He's tricked hundreds of people with that offer. If you accept that offer and resign, he'll stiff you just like he stiffed the contractors. He doesn't have any authority to do this.' There's also the small matter of a looming shutdown unless Congress can hammer out a deal to keep funding the government past a mid-March deadline, raising questions about how the Trump administration will pay resigned workers through September 30 as promised. Even if the buyout offers don't materialize, or federal employees choose to 'hold the line,' the Trump administration is eyeing other ways to shrink the federal workforce. Last week, the administration put all federal diversity, equity, and inclusion workers on leave, and attempted to freeze billions of dollars in federal assistance across government agencies, though by Wednesday it abruptly rescinded this latter directive.
The Independent
29-01-2025
- Politics
- The Independent
‘Hold the line, don't resign': Federal workers encourage each other not to accept Trump's buyout offer
The Trump administration has offered a buyout to around 2 million federal employees and claims they can stop working and still receive pay through the end of September, but workers are rallying each other on Reddit to stay onboard, arguing their presence is 'the last line of defense against fascism.' 'We watched this goon try to overthrow the government on live tv four years ago,' one poster, whose comments have been upvoted tens of thousands of times on r/fednews, wrote. 'Now, we are witnessing him try to overthrow it from within.' 'I didn't dedicate years of my life serving this great country to be bullied into quitting my career by a bunch of fascists,' the user, Odd_Rough_9723, wrote. 'We are being led by the same types of people our grandparents fought against in WW2. They don't care about us, regardless of the fact that one-third of us are veterans and many are military family members.' Another popular post about the buyouts is an image of the Statute of Liberty with the slogan, 'Hold the Line! Don't resign!' The chatter online eventually seemed to get Trump ally Elon Musk's attention, who shared a post on social media complaining federal employees waste time at work by complaining on social media. The Trump administration has argued it's seeking to 'get control of government' by wresting power from career federal service workers, who it believes are 'far left, left-wing.' It claims resignations could cut up to 10 percent of the federal workforce and save $100 billion a year. As part of the Trump administration's non-governmental Department of Government Efficiency initiative, Musk has also spoken about encouraging a 'wave of voluntary terminations that we welcome.' The American Federal of Government Employees, a union which represents federal workers, argued the buyouts were hardly voluntary. 'Between the flurry of anti-worker executive orders and policies, it is clear that the Trump administration's goal is to turn the federal government into a toxic environment where workers cannot stay even if they want to,' AFGE National President Everett Kelley said in a statement on Tuesday. Some on the federal workers subreddit argued the mass resignations would have unintended consequences, including harming industries across the world where Trump-aligned 'broligarchs' like Musk do business. 'There are people in my agency that are the best in the world at what they do, and maintain facilities that are an essential backbone to almost all U.S. (and many foreign) industry,' one federal employee wrote. 'Maybe you can replace a body, but you cannot replace a mind. If these people are replaced, it is a loss for the whole country, but will certainly affect the companies these broligarchs own.' Others expressed doubt that the terms of the Trump offer were even real. 'Don't trust this email, there is no guarantee they will pay you, and they most likely won't!' one commenter said. 'Look at what happened to Twitter employees. They want you to quit, show them you won't back down. Solidarity in numbers.' Indeed, there are a number of parallels between the mass layoffs at X/Twitter and the resignation offer. Both involve Musk, and they even share a tagline. In 2022, as X began what would eventually become an 80 percent purge of its workforce, employees received a memo titled, 'Fork in the Road,' the same title the federal Office of Personnel Management is using to describe the Trump buyout offers. As The Independent reported, the X layoffs brought chaos and multiple lawsuits from former staff members, and there's a suggestion there could be more uncertainty to come around the federal buyout plan. Most importantly, it's not clear the Trump administration has the legal authority or funds to even ensure its promises, according to some. 'The president has no authority to make that offer,' Senator Tim Kaine, Democrat of Virginia, argued Tuesday in a floor speech. 'There's no budget line item to pay people who are not showing up for work.' He pointed to Trump's long history of allegedly withholding payment from contractors on his business projects and urged federal employees to decline the buyout. 'Don't be fooled,' Kaine continued. 'He's tricked hundreds of people with that offer. If you accept that offer and resign, he'll stiff you just like he stiffed the contractors. He doesn't have any authority to do this.' There's also the small matter of a looming shutdown unless Congress can hammer out a deal to keep funding the government past a mid-March deadline, raising questions about how the Trump administration will pay resigned workers through September 30 as promised. Even if the buyout offers don't materialize, or federal employees choose to 'hold the line,' the Trump administration is eyeing other ways to shrink the federal workforce. Last week, the administration put all federal diversity, equity, and inclusion worker s on leave, and attempted to freeze billions of dollars in federal assistance across government agencies, though by Wednesday it abruptly rescinded this latter directive.
