President Donald Trump said he is starting a program to offer residency and a path to citizenship to investors who pay $5 million, offering a new avenue for legal immigration even as he carries out a sweeping crackdown on undocumented migrants.

President Donald Trump said he is starting a program which would offer residency and a path to citizenship for investors who commit at least $5 million to projects in the US.

Trump said the program, dubbed the “gold card,” would launch in two weeks, adding that he did not believe his administration needed to secure approval from Congress.

“We’re going to be selling a gold card,” Trump said Tuesday in the Oval Office as he signed executive orders alongside Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick.

“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,” he added, referencing the permits currently issued to US permanent residents.

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    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.worldEnglish
      181·
      10 hours ago

      My grandparents and great grandparents came to the US with almost nothing, as the voyage alone cost a life’s savings.

      But the 19th century American economy had just finished Native genocide. We had enormous undeveloped tracks of land and a party - The Republicans - eager to goose the economy with settlers willing to do the hard parts of domestic development for next to nothing.

      Rapidly populating the interior with European migrants was a post-Civil War power play, intended to secure territories with party loyal serfs and turn expensive frontier territory into profitable industrial centers.

      “Give me your cheap exploitable migrant labor, yearning to work 16 hour days for less than the cost of living” might have been a more accurate phrasing. But the policy of open borders (for Europeans) was real.