Give Us Your Ultra Wealthy. Give Us Your Corrupt Elites, Yearning to Own America

There’s something grimly on brand about Donald Trump and the second Trump administration looking at the process of obtaining visas and the road toward U.S. citizenship—a tentpole of American democracy—and reducing it solely toward equating the best candidates with the ones most able to pay million-dollar fees. Such is the cynical graft that forms Trump’s previously hyped “Gold Card” to attract exclusively wealthy foreign individuals, which the helpfully labeled new “official website of the United States government” does indeed call “The Trump Gold Card.” One is always tempted, with these Trump concepts, to assume that surely these are just colloquial terms; that the program has a real name, one with dignity, and that something like “Trump Gold Card” is just a nickname for public fascination and FOX News hosts to repeat. But no, these things always end up being as painfully, bluntly literal as possible. When in doubt, assume that as the most preening and vain person in human history, Trump not only would name said card after himself, but literally make it gold, festooning it in the same imagery as the revamped Oval Office, now with the visual aesthetic of a strip club for Russian oligarchs. If you pitched this kind of design philosophy to a fifth grader, he’d say “I dunno, it seems a little bit on the obvious side.”

On Wednesday, Trump officially unveiled not only the Gold Card and its official website (complete with A.I. eagles), but also the so-called Platinum Card, which is the choice for discerning, shady foreign businessmen everywhere who would prefer the U.S. not root around in their finances. The standard Gold Card will require applicants to “gift” $1 million to the U.S. Treasury, while corporate-sponsored applicants need to contribute $2 million for the individual. Platinum Card applicants need to “gift” a robust $5 million, but said card would allow the individual to spend up to 270 days per year in the U.S. without becoming subject to U.S. tax on foreign income, effectively making the card a tax haven for oligarchs and business tycoons. All iterations of the card from with a non-refundable, $15,000 processing fee, just because. It’s the ultimate extension of the administration’s decision to charge H-1B visa seekers $100,000, as announced earlier this year.

As Trump posted on Truth Social: “A direct path to Citizenship for all qualified and vetted people. SO EXCITING! Our Great American Companies can finally keep their invaluable Talent.”

Where will the money generated by said cards go? Trump didn’t have an answer for that when asked Wednesday–I mean, why would you want to work out a reply for a question like that in advance, anyway? Who could have predicted that a member of the media would say something akin to “How will these many millions of dollars be used?” Trump said only that the cash would go to “an account where we can do things positive for the country,” which is a phrase that should instantly send a shiver down your spine.

Trump says the Gold Card proceeds will go “an account where we can do things positive for the country. Many billions of dollars”

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— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) Dec 10, 2025 at 3:10 PM

According to Trump and the newly established website for applications, simply possessing the money to apply for a Gold Card does not guarantee that a foreign national will receive one; heavens no, Trump has his standards after all. Applicants will need to be formally eligible for permanent resident status and be admissible to the U.S., and a visa needs to be available. Applicants will be investigated and vetted by the program, which Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, sounding like he’s channeling Trump like a spiritual medium, described Wednesday as “the best vetting that’s ever been done.”

Legally speaking, those who successfully apply for the Trump Gold Card or Platinum Card will essentially be granted EB-1 or EB-2 visa status, the classes of visa that are typically reserved for people possessing “extraordinary ability,” such as “outstanding professors/researchers, multinational executives, or exceptional ability in sciences, arts or business,” conferring permanent resident status with the pathway to citizenship. Leave it to Trump to simply do away with any previously established conception of “extraordinary ability” and reduce it to merely the contents of any given applicant’s checkbook. Is there any more Trump-like trait, to judge a foreign national seeking a U.S. visa exclusively by how much money they can afford to fork over?

The President, meanwhile, had this to say on the cards ghoulishly bearing the image of his own pursed lips: “It’s a gift of getting somebody great coming into our country, because we think these will be some tremendous people that wouldn’t be allowed to stay. They graduate from college, and they have to go back to India, they have to go back to China, they have to go back to France, they have to go back to wherever they came from. It’s a shame, it’s a ridiculous thing we’re taking care of. The companies are going to be happy.”

Let’s unpack that, for a moment. Trump seems to be angling these Gold Cards as a tool to allow foreign exchange students to stay in the country when their visa would typically expire, but just how many foreign exchange students or their families would be able to pay $1 million for an application? And oh, by the way: The Trump Gold Card covers on that one individual–dependents are not included. Each additional person might very well be another $1 million charge, not that the Trump administration or its website have any answer to that extremely obvious question. Moreover, which corporations are about to sink $2 million into sponsoring one of these graduates, just to retain their services? In what field is it a good economic play to spend $2 million as a gift to the federal government to in order to obtain a single employee (without their dependents)? It’s almost as if … it makes more sense if the money contributed as “gifts” to the Trump administration will be repaid in the form of cronyistic favoritism directed at those businesses? Nah, that doesn’t seem likely. It’s likewise rich that Trump would be making noise about retaining foreign students to U.S. universities, given that his administration has been taking every possible step to limit how long those with student visas can stay in the country, which has already led to falling international student enrollment. But sure, he’s concerned about “tremendous people that wouldn’t be allowed to stay,” okay.

If I didn’t see this myself on Truth Social I’d assume it was some phishing site

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— Matt Novak (@paleofuture.bsky.social) Dec 10, 2025 at 2:58 PM

For the fanciest oligarchs currently thronging on the teeming shores of another land, eager to come buy a piece of America in a land where graft has been federalized, the Trump Platinum Card will obviously be of great interest, though details (and timing) on it are scant—yet another instance of the Trump admin launching this program without actually deciding how various aspects of it will run. From the official website, however, I’d like to direct the attention of any Russian millionaires reading this to the following, hilarious line: “Applicants should join the waitlist now to ensure that they can be processed immediately after the Trump Platinum Card Program goes live! There is no assurance that the Platinum Card contribution will remain at $5 million, so you should join the waitlist now.”

You hear that, captains of industry? If enough of you take Trump up on your offer to make the U.S. your den of corruption, he’s going to jack up the price of the Platinum Card to keep more of those sweet, sweet spoils. Turns out the actual price is “Whatever we’ve determined you are willing to pay.”

This entire program is quite clearly a farce, and one that, at its root, isn’t even a real application. A real application can be filled out by anyone—but with the Trump Gold Card, you fill out a form signaling your interest, and then have to wait to see if your interest is selected by the U.S. government. Only then are you filing the actual application, designated as the newly created Form I-140G. What Trump and co. have essentially created here is a tool for networking wealthy and powerful international/foreign individuals, businesses and families, allowing them to buy their way into a fast-track to permanent resident and eventually citizenship status, and it stands out as far and away the most expensive immigration program in the country’s history. Those selected will no doubt be chosen on not just economic but political basis: You can bet your ass that public support for Trump and his regime will be a necessary component of applying for a Gold Card, as if that should need to be said at a time when the U.S. government is about to start perusing 5 years of social media history for any foreign tourist entering the country.

“If you can literally buy your way to the front of the EB-1 and EB-2 line with a $1 million gift, what message does that send to the nurses, engineers, scientists, and spouses who’ve been waiting years?”, points out immigration attorney Richard T. Herman in his reaction to the program. “It turns the immigration system into a two-tier structure based on wealth—not merit.”

The Trump Gold Card will no doubt face immediate legal challenges as the administration attempts to implement it, with potential lawsuits that could revolve around separation-of-powers violations, given Congressional authority over immigration conferred by the Constitution, or equal protection violations in the way it very clearly prioritizes wealthy applicants. But with a rubber-stamping Supreme Court that has already dictated that the President is free to conduct his graft any way he sees fit and a GOP Congress that can’t wait to cede its own powers and responsibilities to Trump whenever it gets a chance, there may very well be little that anyone can do about the president turning the country’s visa program into shameless immigration payola. We’ll be looking forward to the pending unveiling of the Trump Diamond Card, which for $10 million allows its bearer to crash on the White House couch of their choice, and help themselves to one (1) complimentary piece of fine china from the State Dining Room.