Trump’s ‘gold card’ brings the grifters out

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 07/04/2025 (214 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Grifters gotta grift, and sometimes, they’ll even piggyback on another grifter’s grift to grift even more.

In February — on the heels of an election campaign proclaiming the need to throw people out of America and make it harder for immigrants to obtain citizenship — U.S. President Donald Trump came up with a different idea: allowing people a way to buy their way into America as “gold card” permanent residents with a path to citizenship.

The price? US$5 million. Hardly a case of “your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free” that’s mentioned on the plaque at the Statue of Liberty.

U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick claims to have sold 1,000 of them in a single day for a total of US$5 billion — even though the system to sell the cards hasn’t been established yet, and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has no mention of how to even apply for the cards.

But why let facts get in the way of slick promotion?

Thing is, while the official grifters haven’t started their sale of U.S. permanent residency yet, other grifters have already opened their own marketplace.

There are already scores of websites offering to steward you through the as-yet-non-existent program for a fee, and it’s also now the core of a series of email scams.

One the Free Press received last week offered a direct link to buying preferential and immediate access to U.S. permanent residency.

“The United States Administration is pleased to introduce an exclusive opportunity for high-net-worth individuals to obtain U.S. citizenship and a passport through the Gold Citizenship Card plan,” it read. “This initiative allows qualified investors to secure their future in the U.S. by investing in the Gold Card flexible preferred plan into the U.S. economy.”

As always, the best lies use some scraps of the truth: the fake offer includes a direct link to the DHS website, unfortunately coupled with false email addresses that take your information somewhere else entirely. It also includes language matching the steps the U.S. government has said it will take with applicants.

But there are other hints that you’re being played.

As is often the case with scams, it stresses the importance of immediate action.

“This program is limited in availability, and applications are processed on a first-come, first-served basis. Take advantage of this opportunity today and secure a future in the United States.”

Trump has said nothing about limited availability — in fact, he’s said the U.S. could sell over a million of the gold cards — including to Russian oligarchs.

There are more clues that the email is fake, besides its fake email return addresses. The Department of Homeland Security probably wouldn’t describe the new program as “The President Donald J. Trump has proposed the gold visas as a juiced-up replacement of the EB-5 visa.” Likewise, the U.S. government is unlikely to “offer a flexible instalment payment plan, allowing investors to complete their investment over time while securing their eligibility for the program.”

The “official” DHS logo is slightly out of focus and a clear cut-and-paste from somewhere else.

But with tens of thousands of emails from email lists spread out across the globe for free, the scam only has to hook one or two “fishes” to make the whole effort worthwhile.

And speaking of grifts using other grifters to grift, a subsequent fake email to the Free Press claiming to be from Interpol announced the establishment of a United Nations fund set up to recompense victims for money lost on internet scams. Just forward your banking information.

Grifters gotta grift. Suckers gonna pay.