Adem Jones || Issue 15 || March 5, 2025
President Donald Trump has announced plans for a new “Trump Gold Card,” a streamlined process for immigrants to gain permanent and immediate legal status for $5 million. “It’s going to be a route to citizenship, and wealthy people will be coming into our country by buying this card. They’ll be wealthy, and they’ll be successful, and they’ll be spending a lot of money and paying a lot of taxes,” Trump said. This announcement came from the Oval Office on February 25th during conversations with reporters following Trump’s signing of executive orders. Trump’s intention for the gold card is to create an opportunity for wealthier individuals to enter the country, allowing them to immediately begin contributing to the US economy. This influx in finances will be seen as a means to not only boost the economy but to help the US pay down its financial debt, which as of right now, stands at $36.5 trillion. The US Secretary of Commerce, Howard Lutnick said, “200,000 of these gold, green cards are $1 trillion to pay down our debt and that’s why the President is doing it.” This decision has been met with mixed reviews from both politicians and American citizens. Concerns have risen regarding the creation of a sort of hierarchy system that gives priority and privilege to those who are wealthy. In addition to this, people have voiced concerns about how this policy may open the door to larger issues such as fraud, money laundering, and corruption. Other concerns are whether or not this decision will play out as American citizenship becoming something that you can buy, opposing the longstanding belief that citizenship is something that must be earned and achieved. “We don’t recall Trump campaigning on selling citizenship to the highest bidder,” Dan Stein, president of the conservative immigration group, FAIR, said. “In our view, Congress would have to approve this program, you don’t want to hang a sign on the Statue of Liberty that says ‘America is on sale,’” Stein said. Another concern from a more humanitarian standpoint is that it’s simply unfair. To put a price tag on American citizenship is to reduce people to their economic background. Regardless of credentials, intention, or character, with this system in place, only the wealthy will be able to benefit. “We were talking about having scientists come to America to cure disease and now he takes it to ‘let’s have Russian oligarchs here,’ to come to America and play golf with him,” Jake Auchincloss, a democratic representative from Massachusetts, told CNN in an interview. Whether or not this gold card will come to fruition is to be determined, conversations about how this decision may or may not involve congress are still underway and the implications of this announcement will be seen in months to come.
The Hudsonian 