Nuri Katz has been a consultant for foreign investors on residency programs for over three decades. But he hasn't ever seen anything quite like President Donald Trump's new "Gold Card" program formally unveiled last week.
Nuri Katz of Apex Capital Partners has delivered skeptical advice to foreign investors asking about Trump's new gold card program
Nuri Katz of Apex Capital Partners (Photo courtesy of Apex Capital Partners).
Nuri Katz has been a consultant for foreign investors on residency programs for over three decades. But he hasn't ever seen anything quite like President Donald Trump's new "Gold Card" program formally unveiled last week.
The Trump administration launched the initiative as a pathway to provide rich foreigners with a streamlined path to U.S. residency. For a $15,000 processing fee payable to the Department of Homeland Security and a $1 million “contribution,” foreigners will receive residency “in record time,” according to the site. The timeline isn't specified further. Applicants are subject to a background check from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.
Over the past few days, Katz, founder of Apex Capital Partners, fielded calls from clients in Russia, the Middle East, and Europe inquiring about the new Trump-branded residency program. On Tuesday morning, he delivered a straightforward message for a client from an unspecified European country.
"I said to him, 'Don't be the guinea pig,'" Katz, who is based in the Caribbean island of Antigua, told Quartz in a phone interview. "You don't know what this is. Let's wait some months and see if they're not going to change it again, because they've been just changing it and changing it."
Residency or citizenship programs tied to foreign investment aren't new. Katz observed Antigua has a program that bestows citizenship on applicants who invest a sum of money. The threshold in Antigua starts at $230,000. Most other countries with similar programs, such as Australia and Canada, have a residency period which serves as a stepping stone towards citizenship.
There are some exceptions: Greece's "Golden Visa $V" compels investors to pay at least 250,000 euros to qualify for residency, but there is no fast-track to citizenship.
Katz's skepticism stems from the endlessly fluctuating nature of the "Gold Card" program. The Trump administration has said it's designed to restructure the EB-5 program. Creating or modifying a visa program requires Congress to act, not the executive branch.
Under the current EB-5 initiative, foreigners who invest at least $800,000 and demonstrate their cash creates 10 jobs qualify for a U.S. residency.
However, there is one big difference separating the two programs, Katz said. Foreigners expect to eventually recoup their investment under EB-5 program. The Trump gold card specifies a $1 million "contribution" to the U.S. government that isn't paid back. The sticker-price applies for each applicant — and it's also not yet clear whether citizenship lies at the end of the tunnel.
Katz argues these rules will put a hard limit on foreign enthusiasm for the program given its hefty price tag and a limited pool of high net-worth individuals abroad to draw from. About 30,000 individuals have a net-worth above $100 million, and two-thirds of them are American already. As a rule of thumb, he said, foreigners typically don't invest beyond 10% of their net worth to emigrate elsewhere.
"The government is trying to get into the investor immigrant business big time, but they haven't written a business plan," Katz said. "They just haven't done their homework and their research into what exactly is the product that they're selling and to whom they are selling this product."
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