Since day one, President Donald Trump has made it crystal clear: America isn’t interested in your tired, your poor, or your hungry—unless, of course, you’ve got $5 million to spare. In that case, welcome aboard.
It is not enough for the president to treat the White House like a lavish trap house—now he is out here hawking “gold cards” like he is running a corner operation.
“Got dem gold cards, yo!”
A Pay-to-Play Path to Citizenship
On Tuesday, Trump unveiled a new initiative: if you are foreign-born and wealthy enough, you can now buy your way into American citizenship. According to Trump, the country loves wealthy foreigners. But let’s be clear about what this means.
When Trump and his inner circle talk about immigration policy and “rounding people up,” they are not talking about billionaires like Elon Musk or even Trump’s wife, who reportedly secured a “genius visa” (no, I’m not kidding). They are talking about people of color who aren’t born here. But if you’ve got money, you can skip the line. Trump runs citizenship like a VIP list at an exclusive nightclub.
“We’re going to be selling a gold card,” Trump said from the Oval Office, according to CNN. “You have a green card. This is a gold card. We’re going to be putting a price on that card of about $5 million, and that’s going to give you green card privileges, plus it’s going to be a route to citizenship. And wealthy people will be coming into our country by buying this card.”
The plan is to have these gold cards ready within two weeks, and rich foreigners are already scrambling to get their hands on them.
Millionaires Are Lining Up
Dominic Volek, head of private clients at Henley & Partners, told CNBC that he is already fielding calls from clients eager to buy citizenship in a country that claims it has no space for the people who already live here.
About 135,000 millionaires worldwide are expected to relocate to a new country this year, usually choosing between the United States and the United Arab Emirates—though Brazil is technically an option as well, if anyone is paying attention.
And in case you are wondering whether these gold cards are off-limits to Russian oligarchs, Trump has an answer for that too:
“Yeah, possibly. I know some Russian oligarchs that are very nice people.”
Of course, he does.
The Death of the EB-5 Visa Program
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, standing beside Trump, explained that the gold card will replace the government’s EB-5 immigrant investor visa program, which previously allowed wealthy foreigners to invest in U.S. projects and apply for visas.
This program was originally designed to target “distressed” areas and create American jobs. However, in practice, it often resulted in real estate developments funded by foreign investors—a controversial issue that caused a rift during Trump’s first term.
So Trump finally said, “Why are we pretending? They want citizenship, and we want money.”
And thus, welcome to the new America—or as they would call it on The Wire, “Hamsterdam.”
Originally posted by Stephen A. Crockett Jr. of NewsOne.