The Trump Gold Card: All that glitters is not gold for Indians
Applications for the Trump Gold Card are now being accepted on the official website, which went live on Wednesday night. ‘Unlock life in America. Apply now’, it announces. But, read between the lines and it is apparent that all that glitters is not gold, at least not for Indians who may wish to apply for a permanent residency in the US via this card.For Indians, the term ‘apply now’ does not translate into getting a permanent residency now. In reality it means paying millions of dollars only to wait years — or even decades — in the same overburdened queues.
The price tag alone is hefty. The program requires a $ one million donation ($ two million for corporate sponsorship) to the US Treasury, plus a $15,000 Department of Homeland Security (DHS) processing fee for every applicant. The recently updated Trump Gold Card website reveals something even more startling, Mitch Wexler, senior counselor at Fragomen, a global immigration law firm, points out: “Each family member (spouse or child under 21) must also pay their own $ 1 million donation and the $15,000 processing fee.” The wordings on the official website are clear: “If an individual applicant or corporate sponsor wishes for a spouse or unmarried children (under 21 years old) to join the cardholder in the US, then each such family member should be included as part of the initial application. This will ensure that these family members receive all of the privileges conferred by the Gold Card Program, including expedited processing. Each family member is subject to an additional $15,000 DHS processing fee and $1 million gift.”
In other words, a family of four could therefore be looking at a minimum outflow of $4 million, even before legal fees and documentation costs.Yet despite the extraordinary sums involved, the program does not create a new immigration category, nor does it reserve visa numbers or confer any priority. The USCIS form for Gold Card applicants explicitly requires them to file under existing green card pathways: EB-1A (Extraordinary Ability) or EB-2 NIW (National Interest Waiver). There is no separate Gold Card classification.Under US immigration laws, an annual limit for employment-based green cards (into which the Gold Cards also fall) is pegged at 1.40 lakh plus any unused family-sponsored green cards that are passed on to this category, with a per-country limit of 7%. Thus, with large numbers of high-skilled Indian applicants, the backlog for these categories of green cards is lengthy.New York–based immigration attorney Cyrus D. Mehta spells out the stark reality: “If you are born in India, beware of Trump’s Gold Card, as you will be stuck in the India EB-1 or EB-2 backlogs for years and even decades after you have shelled out $ one million or more and won’t see your green card for a very long time or never.”The official website states: Applicants must be eligible for lawful permanent resident status, admissible to the US, and a visa must be available. ‘A small number of countries may have wait times of up to a year or more based on visa (aka green card) availability’, it adds.The Gold Card Program offers no relief from the green card backlogs. For Indian-born applicants, this is the core problem. To explain the backlog lingo: The priority date is the day US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) receives the green-card application, but an individual cannot apply for a change of status to receive a green card, until this priority date becomes current. Because of this, India-born foreign nationals often have to wait longer than people from other countries to receive their EB-1 or other employment-based green cards.As per the December 2025 Visa Bulletin, for the EB-1 India category the priority date is around April 15, 2023. That means Indians who filed their application before this date are seeing a movement in the backlog and will be able to file for adjustment of status to a green card. The EB-2 India category is far worse, stuck around May 15, 2013, that means only applicants who filed before that date are currently being processed. In fact, in both instances, post filing for adjustment of status, there is another bout of waiting to get a green card. The huge donation under the Gold Card program does nothing to move an applicant forward in this queue.Further, Gold Card applicants may have to satisfy the full evidentiary burden of EB-1A or EB-2 NIW. It is not very clear, from Trump’s executive order which ushered the Gold Card Program, whether the donation by itself will suffice. These are rigorous, evidence-heavy standards that are challenging to meet.To qualify for EB-1A, an applicant must demonstrate sustained national or international acclaim, typically through a portfolio of achievements such as major awards, high-impact publications, original contributions to the field, and recognition by peers. USCIS must be convinced the applicant is among the “top few percent” in their domain.Even the EB-2 “exceptional ability” threshold — the baseline requirement before NIW criteria are evaluated — requires meeting at least three stringent regulatory criteria such as professional recognition, high salary relative to the field, or significant contributions. NIW, among other criteria, also requires applicants to show that their work has substantial merit and national importance.Wexler states that after processing of their applications, it is anticipated that Gold Card applicants will be required to appear at the US consulate in their home country for an in-person interview before their immigrant visa can be approved. Once approved, the individual can enter the United States as a lawful permanent resident. “In general, consular processing – the last step in the process, which results in the grant of permanent residence status – can take several months, depending on the consular post,” adds Wexler. He further points out that the Trump administration has not yet indicated whether foreign nationals already in the US will be permitted to use the USCIS adjustment of status process to apply for their green cards under the Gold Card program and details on this are awaited.
