Donald Trump’s “gold card” program that allows wealthy foreigners to buy their way to legal status in the United States is an illegal “fast lane” that cuts out qualified immigrants, according to a federal lawsuit from a group of noncitizen doctors and researchers.
The lawsuit targets the president’s creation of a pay-to-play scheme that grants EB-1 and EB-2 visas with the “gift” of at least $1 million, regardless of merit.
Those visas cover foreign workers who are considered to have “extraordinary ability” and “outstanding” work, including in medicine, arts and sciences. But Congress caps the number of EB-1 and EB-2 visas that can be issued each year and requires that they be allocated in the order in which they were filed.
Instead, Trump’s Gold Card “prioritizes wealth over intellect or ability” by converting visas into an illegal revenue-generating scheme at the expense of immigrants whose admission into the country is established by law, according to the lawsuit.
“Forget ‘give us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses,’” said Norm Eisen, co-founder of Democracy Defenders Fund, which is supporting the litigation. “Donald Trump's maxim is ‘give us your money, your oligarchs and your privileged few’ when it comes to his Gold Card program that is illegal.”
The president’s program “is trying to turn our immigration system into a playground for the highest bidder and push aside the scientists, engineers, innovators, and others who can improve and enrich all our lives,” he said.
The Independent has requested comment from the White House.
With a mandate to remove more than 1 million each year, Homeland Security has stripped legal status for hundreds of thousands of immigrants while the Department of Justice upended immigration courts to swiftly remove them from the United States.
And while the administration severely restricts foreigners from dozens of countries from entering the country, the president is rolling out a program that he calls “a direct path to citizenship.”
Trump’s “gold card” visa requires individual applicants to pay $1 million, while businesses sponsoring employees are required to pay $2 million, according to the president’s September executive order.
Those companies must also pay an annual maintenance fee of $20,000, as well as a 5 percent transfer fee each time they want to switch the visa from one employee to another.
He also wants to launch a $5 million “platinum” card that gives recipients 270 days in the United States without being subject to U.S. taxes on non-U.S. income.
But the applications appear open to anyone with $1 million, which the administration considers “exceptional business ability” for an employment-based visa. There is nothing in the application process that stipulates that the money comes from one’s own business or employment.
It also does not appear to prevent anyone from applying using money from a parent or family member, or from a loan, or from using cryptocurrency to pay the fees.
Plaintiffs in the lawsuit include the American Association of University Professors and several award-winning biomedical engineers, cancer researchers, public health workers and other doctors and scientists from Mexico, Colombia, Ghana and Taiwan seeking lawful residence to work in the United States through EB-1 and EB-2 programs.
Lawyers argue that the program is part of the Trump administration’s wider attack on immigrants, health research and higher education.
“Congress created a clear, merit-based framework for employment-based immigration, with strict limits on who qualifies and how visas are allocated,” according to Sarah Wilson, partner with Colombo & Hurd, among the firms representing the plaintiffs.
“The Gold Card program attempts to bypass that system by treating wealth as a substitute for statutory eligibility and, in doing so, it harms the scientists, researchers and professionals who have played by the rules and waited their turn,” she said.
While the president has touted his Gold Card as a pathway to citizenship, the program’s website notes that it only confers legal residency.
All applicants must still be eligible for lawful permanent resident status in the United States, and a visa must be available to them; several countries have significant wait times of a year or longer, based on visa availability. The president has indefinitely shut down visa applications from dozens of countries.
Immigrants applying for lawful permanent status, or a green card, are currently facing wait times of more than three years, and people seeking legal status in the country are often locked in years-long legal battles in immigration courts while continuing to pay taxes through their employment.
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