WASHINGTON, Dec 11— President Donald Trump on Wednesday unveiled a new visa program, the “Trump Gold Card,” allowing foreign students and skilled workers to remain in the United States by paying $1 million or having companies sponsor them for $2 million.
Trump said the program aims to prevent talented graduates from top universities from being forced to leave the country. “You graduate from college, you have to go back to India, they have to go back to China, they have to go back to France… Very hard to stay. It’s a shame. It’s a ridiculous thing. We’re taking care of that,” he said during a White House roundtable.
Flanked by IBM CEO Arvind Krishna and Dell Technologies CEO Michael Dell, Trump said companies will now be able to hire and retain top graduates from institutions such as Harvard, MIT, and Wharton. “It’s basically a much better form of green card. And you can’t get green cards. They are impossible to get. This is much better than a green card,” he added.
The visa website, trumpcard.gov, launched Wednesday, promises “US residency in record time” for individuals who pay a $15,000 DHS processing fee and contribute $1 million, or for corporations paying $2 million to sponsor an employee.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said the program will include thorough vetting to ensure applicants are “perfect people in America.” “After five years, they’ll be available to become citizens,” Lutnick said. “For a company, they can keep putting people on the card, one person per card.”
Trump said he has spoken with tech leaders including Apple CEO Tim Cook, who raised concerns that companies often cannot retain top talent due to visa limitations. “It’s not going to be a problem anymore,” Trump said. “We solved that. We’ll take in, I think, billions of dollars, many billions of dollars even. So that’s very exciting.”
