Donald Trump has a specific vision for the future of the United States. On one hand, the administration is deporting asylum seekers and immigrants at unprecedented numbers. On the other hand, launched last December, is the gold card visa program, meant to attract wealthy foreigners with promises of residency in record time.
It was touted as a way to raise substantial revenue and attract thousands of millionaires and billionaires, but the program has several problems.
According to The Washington Post, immigration attorneys are actively steering their high-net-worth clients away from the gold card visa, citing concerns that the program lacks a solid foundation in federal law. These lawyers are worried that the lack of congressional authorization, combined with ongoing litigation and murky tax implications, makes the $15,000 application fee a poor investment.
Many professionals in the field have simply declined to assist with these specific applications, preferring to guide their clients toward established, legal pathways for residency. This skepticism isn’t just from individual attorneys. There is also a significant lack of participation.
At this point, I am not sure Trump’s policies are ever going to be stable enough to trust
CNBC notes that the program has been dogged by delays and legal questions since its inception. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick had previously predicted the government would issue 80,000 gold cards and generate over $100 billion in revenue.
The actual numbers, however, tell a very different story. A recent court filing revealed that only 338 people have submitted requests for the program, with just 165 individuals paying the nonrefundable $15,000 filing fee.
The discrepancy between the initial marketing of the visa and the reality of its implementation is a major point of contention. While the official website promised residency in a matter of weeks, the Department of Homeland Security recently admitted in a legal filing that gold card applicants will not necessarily receive faster processing than those using traditional visa categories.
Craig Becker, who is litigating a lawsuit against the program, argues that this contradiction is a symptom of the visa’s precarious legal standing. In his view, the White House had to promise speed to generate interest, but then had to backtrack when faced with legal challenges regarding the fairness of the process.
Becker stated, “We just don’t know what the real answer is because there is no transparency.” He later added, “The program is clearly unlawful.”
For immigration attorneys, the professional risk of recommending such a program is simply too high. Michael Wildes, an attorney who has represented high-profile clients like Melania Trump and her parents, has expressed that he cannot, in good conscience, take on gold card cases.
“It would be unethical of me to retain them,” Wildes said regarding potential clients interested in the program. Other experts, like Mona Shah, have gone so far as to label the promises of speedy processing as “false advertising.”
Shah, who has clients from Nigeria and Pakistan, noted that while some people are desperate enough to pay for a chance at residency, she cannot guarantee them success. “They want me to say ‘Yes, you are going to get it,’ and I can’t say that to them,” she explained.
The technical and legal distinctions between the gold card and the more traditional EB-5 visa are also driving clients away. Ron Klasko, an immigration attorney who has taken on a single gold card case for a Ukrainian businessman, has created a breakdown to help his clients see the risks.
He highlights that the EB-5 program is backed by legislation. It simply requires an investment that creates jobs. The gold card, on the other hand, is an executive order that could be eliminated at any time.
The gold card also requires a $1 million nonrefundable gift plus additional costs for family members, and it lacks the regulatory security of the older, established programs. Klasko noted that once his clients see the comparison, they typically decide to go with the EB-5 instead.
At the recent Invest In the USA conference in Washington, the gold card barely even surfaced as a topic of serious conversation. Aaron Grau, the executive director of the trade association behind the event, mentioned that when the topic does come up on Capitol Hill, lawmakers tend to respond with eyerolls, showing no real interest in codifying the executive order into law.
With the legal future of the program so uncertain, it seems unlikely that the gold card will become the game changer the administration once hoped it would be. In the meantime, in the name of getting rid of illegal immigrants and violent criminals, America is losing workers for key industries, serving as a brain drain in its own way.
Published: May 11, 2026 09:20 am