Gold Card Mania!
Donald Trump rattled the EB-5 world today when he dropped the bomb about a new visa class - The Gold Card. It sounds like an American Express designation. Regardless, I immediately had clients texting and emailing and asking what it could possibly mean for existing and prospective EB-5 investors.
First of all, Donald Trump says a lot of things, and we are often left to wonder whether he means them. There was that comment about Gaza…
Second, while something like this could conceivably happen, the creation of a new visa class would require an act of Congress. Congress doesn’t seem to be interested in doing much of anything. To the dismay of those of us that work in this migration business, anti-immigrant sentiment is pretty strong in the US today. Trump would struggle to get any Democrat votes on this propositon because the Democrats just hate him, and even some Republicans might object. In any case, an undertaking this complicated would require a great deal of legislative horsetrading, and it would take much longer than two weeks.
Third, a few commentators think Trump has been pushing his luck lately. He’s supposed to be a populist, with working class support. The fact is, there is a strong anti-eliteism in the American psyche, and sooner or later people are going to get tired of billionaires like Donald Trump and Elon Musk doing things for their rich friends while the price of eggs keeps rising. As an example, sometimes when I tell people what kind of work I do, they scoff, because they think the EB-5 cheapens American citizenship by selling it to “rich people.” This is even worse. At least EB-5 investors create jobs. This will not be a politically popular move.
He may not be serious, but it is pretty well established that Trump is taking vengeance on his detractors. You may recall that in 2017, Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner’s sister, Nicole Meyer took a lot of flack for a pitch to Chinese EB-5 prospects that seemed to capitalize on the relationship with Trump through Kushner. The Kushner Companies eventually abandoned the idea of using EB-5, because the optics were not good. So maybe this is Trump fighting back, as he does, against anyone that he thinks has wronged him or his family
Most likely, even if this musing by Trump became reality, existing EB-5 investments would be grandfathered into the new law. The problem for the EB-5 investor, of course, is that investors in projects that are not fully subscribed, and which depend on full subscription for success, may find those projects fail if the Regional Center program is not extended beyond its current sunset date in 2027. But that’s always been true, Gold Card notwithstanding.