UPDATE (February 26, 2025, 1:44 p.m. ET): Donald Trump added some additional thoughts on his “gold card” plan at a White House Cabinet meeting. They included the president’s apparent belief that the policy could generate “$5 trillion” for the country.

Around the world, different countries have different standards for those seeking citizenship. In some countries, for example, you’re eligible if you have a parent who was a citizen. In other countries, it’s a grandparent.

But there’s another group of countries in which citizenship is, for all intents and purposes, for sale: If you’re willing to write a sizable check, you can become a citizen. The International Monetary Fund refers to these as “golden passport programs.”

Evidently, the United States is poised to become one of these countries. The New York Times reported:

President Trump on Tuesday previewed his plans for a new visa program he was calling the gold card, describing it as “somewhat like a green card, but at a higher level of sophistication.” The blingy new program would allow “very high-level people” a new “route to citizenship,” Mr. Trump said. The price tag, he said, would be about $5 million.

The Republican’s newly confirmed commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, told reporters that the program — which he referred to as “the Trump gold card” —would replace the existing EB-5 visa program.

For generations, Americans have taken pride in the words inscribed on the Statue of Liberty: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” In Trump’s America, the maxim has been augmented a bit: If some “very high-level people” want to pony up $5 million, the door is open to them.

Recommended

Velshi

The cruelty of Trump’s crackdown on U.S. citizenship ceremonies

Ali Velshi

MS NOW Opinion

The Trump administration’s worrisome new focus on this group’s ‘good moral character’

Jarvis DeBerry

Asked whether a Russian oligarch might be eligible under the new program, the president suggested that was a real possibility. “Hey, I know some Russian oligarchs that are very nice people,” Trump said, failing to elaborate on how many Russian oligarchs he knows, and how he came to know them.

Bloomberg News’ report on this noted that international law enforcement agencies have warned that programs like these “facilitate criminal activity and are riddled with corruption,” adding, “The European Commission, the EU’s executive branch, has warned for years that golden visa programs expose the bloc to money laundering and security risks.”

At least for now, the Trump White House appears to have no such concerns. What could possibly go wrong?