US companies can now hire Indians’: Donald Trump on ‘gold card’ visa

The move follows Trump’s unveiling of the ‘gold card’ on Wednesday—a pathway to US citizenship for wealthy foreign investors willing to invest $5 million. It is also seen as a significant boost for Indian students.

Donald Trump, during his first Cabinet meeting, said he hoped the gold cards would “sell like crazy”.

“A person comes from India, China, Japan – lots of different places and they go to Harvard, the Wharton School of Finance, they go to Yale they go to all great schools, and they graduate number one in their class, and they are made job offers, but the offers are immediately rescinded because you have no idea whether or not that person can stay in the country,” news agency ANI quoted Donald Trump as saying.

Trumps wants ‘productive’ people in US

Trump said that he introduced the gold card system to tackle the issue. He said that a company can buy a gold card and use it for this recruitment matter.

“I want to be able to have that person stay in the country, these companies can go and buy a gold card, and they can use it as a matter of recruitment. At the same time, the company is using that money to pay down debt we are going to. We are going to pay down a lot of debt with that, and I think the gold card is going to be used not only for that. I mean, they will be used by companies,” Trump said.

When asked about the gold card plan, Trump jokingly remarked, “I hope you liked it.”

Trump said he wanted “productive” people in the US, and those USD 5 million would create jobs and pay off the US debt.

Trump further said that many of these ‘productive’ graduates return to their home countries and become successful entrepreneurs. “They go back to India, or they go back to the country where they came from, and they open up a company, and they become billionaires. They’re employing thousands of people,” he said.