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Norms Impact

Sold 1,000 gold cards worth $5 million each in a day: Trump aide’s big claim

A cabinet secretary is touting a “Trump Card” that sells US residency for $5 million, collapsing immigration authority into a presidentially branded cash-raising scheme.

Executive

Mar 22, 2025

Sources

https://www.indiatoday.in/world/story/donald-trump-official-big-announcement-usd-5-billion-raised-in-a-day-by-selling-1000-gold-cards-howard-lutnick-2697327-2025-03-22

Summary

US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said 1,000 immigration “gold cards” priced at $5 million each were sold in a single day, raising $5 billion. The executive branch is publicly positioning a pay-to-immigrate program—framed as a “Trump Card”—as a replacement for the EB-5 investor visa and as a fiscal tool to address debt and deficits. If implemented as described, access to lawful residency would be explicitly commodified at the highest levels of government, reshaping immigration administration into a revenue-raising channel.

Reality Check

Selling government immigration status through a presidentially branded, revenue-driven scheme invites corruption risks that erode equal protection and turn public power into a private-market product, weakening our rights and democratic legitimacy. Based on what’s described, criminal exposure would most plausibly arise if officials solicited or accepted anything of value in exchange for official acts, implicating federal bribery and corruption statutes such as 18 U.S.C. § 201 and honest-services fraud under 18 U.S.C. §§ 1341, 1343, and 1346, as well as conspiracy under 18 U.S.C. § 371 if coordinated. Even without provable quid pro quo, the conduct squarely violates core anti–pay-to-play norms by conditioning access to lawful residency on extreme wealth while leveraging executive authority as a debt-reduction fundraising mechanism.

Detail

On the “All-In Podcast,” US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said that 1,000 immigration “gold cards” were sold in one day at $5 million each, totaling $5 billion. Lutnick said there are “37 million people” globally capable of purchasing the card and stated that Donald Trump believes one million cards could be sold to raise “at least $5 trillion.”

Lutnick said the program was Trump’s idea, conceived during a meeting with investor John Paulson, and that his role was to implement it, stating, “I figured out how to do it.” The initiative was described as a replacement for the existing EB-5 investor visa and was referred to in the podcast as the “Trump Card.”

Lutnick said the money raised would be used to help clear the US national debt, cited as $36.2 trillion, and in a prior Fox News interview said the program’s main purpose was to reduce the federal deficit. Trump separately described the card as an “upgraded green card” intended to attract wealthy residents who would spend money, pay taxes, and create jobs.