The Green Card V The Trump Gold Card I

Good morning, dear reader, today we discuss the existing immigration EB-5 Investor program and the impending Trump Gold Card.

What is the EB-5 progam, Big Red Car?

The EB-5 Immigrant Investor Program (administered by the USCIS — US Citizenship and Immigration Service) was created in 1990 as a pathway for investors to attain a green card as a result of an investment in the United States that created at least 10 new jobs.

Since the inception of the program, it appears:

 1. that as many as 240,000 visas (including the families of the foreign immigrant investor) have been granted;

 2. that more than $50B has been invested;

 3. that the US Treasury has generated approximately $20B in tax revenue; and,

 4. that 1.0MM jobs have been created as a direct result of the investment.

The jobs are estimated using the formula of “direct jobs” X 1.5 indirect jobs to arrive at the final tally. Seems a bit tenuous to Big Red Cars.

[It is very, very, very difficult to obtain good info on the program as it was initiated before any of this information was digitized and the government does not keep score on revenue generated and jobs created. I obtained that info by using 3 different artificial intelligence applications that all resulted in surprisingly close numbers, but I am still quite skeptical.]

WTF are the details, Big Red Car?

Fine, dear reader, here are the specifics:

 1. The investor must be of good character and underwritten by the USCIS. [Note: There are wild allegations of the participation of Chinese and Iranian intelligence services in the program.]

 2. The investor must invest $1,050,000 and may invest as little as $800,000 in specific targeted areas (TEAs – targeted employment areas – the ghetto or targeted economic zones).

 3. Since 1992, investors may invest with regional investment hubs in order to pool their money for larger enterprises. Most of the current investment goes to these regional centers.

 4. The investment must create 10 new American full time worker jobs.

 5. The attendant green card is granted for an initial two year period. If after the initial term, the investment is performing as required, the green card is renewed and the investor is now on a road toward citizenship if they so desire.

 6. There is a limit of 10,000 such EB-5 visas per year and no more than 700 per country. Certain countries like China “sell out” immediately every year, but others do not.

Do other countries do this, Big Red Car?

Yes, they do, dear reader. Amongst them are the following that require jobs to be created:

These programs do not require jobs to be created:

Bottom line it, Big Red Car, we’re getting a mani-pedi at 10:00 AM

Fine, dear reader.

 1. The United States is not unique in offering an investor visa that leads to citizenship.

 2. The current program, EB-5, has been around since 1990 and has been widely used.

 3. The program has been fraught with allegations of corruption — surprise, surprise, surprise — and was revised in 2022 to counteract some of that.

The new program — the Trump Golden Visa — will be described in the next post.

But, hey, what the Hell do I really know anyway? I’m just a Big Red Car.