First $1M US Gold Card visa approved, commerce secretary announces

WASHINGTON - The Trump administration has approved only one Gold Card visa under a program granting U.S. residency to non-citizens for a $1 million fee, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said on Thursday, stressing that hundreds more had applied.

In December, U.S. President Donald Trump launched the "Trump Gold Card" visa program that allows applicants to pay a $15,000 fee to the Department of Homeland Security for speedy processing.

After a background check or vetting process, applicants must then make a "contribution" of $1 million to get the visa, similar to a green card, which allows them to live and work in the United States.

"They have approved recently one person and there are hundreds in the queue going through the process," Lutnick said in a congressional hearing.

"This is a new program and they've just set it up and they wanted to make sure they did it perfectly," he added, noting that the process included "rigorous vetting."

In December, Lutnick told Reuters that some 10,000 people had signed up for the Gold Card during a pre-registration period and that he expected many more to do so. "I would expect over time that we'd sell, you know, thousands of these cards and raise, you know, billions, billions of dollars," he added at the time. — Reuters