Golden Visa | Plaid Line + PRIZM + Scottie News

By: Evie Beaumaster

5 million dollars is the cost that Donald Trump put on his “Gold card”, which is an immigration visa that will be available for purchase. Trump recently announced these at a press conference in the Oval Office.

There is already a similar visa in place called the EB-5 Visa which is available for people to invest in businesses in America. These visas cost $1,050,000 or $800,000 in investment for businesses here. While this visa is strictly for businesses, it is available for anyone to buy if they meet the criteria.

Trump’s “Gold Card” visa would replace the EB-5 Visa but it is an astronomically high cost for a business visa. There are very few people in other countries that have enough money for this visa. The “Gold Card” would also not be an effective route to citizenship. 5 million dollars is a lot of money just to live somewhere.

Other countries have tried similar visas, often called golden visas; they have existed in many European countries but they are sparking concern about who exactly is spending that money for a visa, with people saying that many times it is people using the visas for criminal purposes. Some of the European countries that have these visas are: Spain, Italy, Greece, Portugal and Ireland. These countries started the “gold visas” as a way to make up economic shortfalls.

One of the negative effects of these visas was that richer immigrants came and bought out a lot of local housing and they drove up rental costs and home costs. Many of these countries have since stopped these programs due to the European Union’s warning about people fleeing from Russia as well as these visas being used for corruption, tax evasion, and money laundering. Many countries in the Middle East are considering these golden visas in addition to the US. These visas are raising concerns about how, and if, these will be used by criminals.

Trump has also voiced how the “Gold Card” would be extremely successful and he seems fully sold on the idea that wealthy people will flock here and spend money and pay taxes. When asked if Russian oligarchs would be able to come, Trump responded, with “Yeah possibly I know some oligarchs that are very nice people, it’s possible”. For people who may not know, an oligarchy is defined as a form of government where a very small number of people have power. There is a large number of oligarchs in Russia, so they might try to immigrate to America with this new visa. While he said that people coming here would be “vetted” he has not expressed any information about how this system would be happening, and he did not say how people would apply, and how these applications would be approved.

At the end of the day, the story that is being spread from the US government is that, if you are rich enough to pay millions to get to America, you are rich enough to stay. We must ask ourselves, is this the message we want to send to the world after our country was founded by poor immigrants. Because, after all, most people in America had a relative that came here at some point who was not rich enough to buy a ticket to a “better” life.

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