Some Republican senators say the Trump administration’s “gold card” visa program would need Congress’ approval. So they were caught off guard by the fact that the Trump administration is already doing a “quiet trial” of the program.
White House officials have been tossing around the idea of offering U.S. residency to citizens of other countries for $5 million, which President Donald Trump said would not require any legislation from Congress. But after Wired reported last week that some immigration forms were already referencing the visas, Elon Musk confirmed that the administration intends to proceed, apparently without Congress’ approval — or knowledge.
“Did they just recently do that?” Majority Leader John Thune asked. “This is sort of, again, uncharted territory, and so we’ll evaluate it. I wasn’t aware that that was actually — I know it’s been an idea that’s been percolating out there, but I didn’t realize it was actually a thing, so we’ll have to figure that out.”