New York/Washington, 11 Dec

US President Donald Trump on Wednesday launched a new million-dollar “Gold Card” visa, calling it a pathway to citizenship for high-skilled immigrants and saying it was a “shame” that students from India, China and other countries must leave the US after graduating.

The Gold Card, he said, would allow companies to retain top talent from leading American universities. “You graduate number one from your college, and there’s no way of guaranteeing you can stay. It’s a shame,” Trump told a roundtable at the White House.

He said business leaders had repeatedly urged him to fix the issue. Flanked by IBM’s Indian-American CEO Arvind Krishna and Dell Technologies CEO Michael Dell, Trump said the new system would help firms hire graduates from Wharton, Harvard, MIT and other top institutions without uncertainty.

Trump said companies often avoided hiring international students because they did not know if the employee could remain in the US. “They’re thrown out of the country,” he said, adding that Apple CEO Tim Cook had raised the problem “many times”.

Trump said the Gold Card will bring “billions of dollars” into the US and offer companies greater benefits than a traditional green card. “It’s basically a much better form of a green card, and you can’t get green cards. They’re impossible to get,” he said.

According to the administration, companies will be able to pay USD 2 million to sponsor a worker, while individuals can apply by contributing USD 1 million. After five years and full vetting, Gold Card holders will be eligible to apply for citizenship.

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said the card was meant to ensure the US attracted only the “best people”. He said corporations could keep replacing the beneficiary on each card over time, but only one person could be attached to a card at once.

Lutnick added that the average green card holder earned less than the average American and was more likely to rely on federal assistance. The Gold Card, he said, would reverse that trend by focusing on high-earning, highly skilled applicants.

The website for the programme, trumpcard.gov, went live on Wednesday. It advertises “US residency in record time” for applicants who pay a USD 15,000 processing fee and, after background clearance, make the USD 1 million contribution.

Trump contrasted the new scheme with the existing H1B visa pathway, which has come under greater scrutiny in recent months. Thousands of H1B applicants in India recently saw their visa interviews postponed by several months, reportedly due to expanded checks on social media activity.

The administration has already tightened H1B rules as part of its broader immigration overhaul, making it harder for companies to hire foreign workers.

Trump said the Gold Card would eliminate the need for companies to reroute employees to Canada or elsewhere to secure work authorisation. “We solved that,” he said.

“This will be a gift to the United States,” Lutnick added. “It will help America be great again under Donald Trump.”