Lending her expertise to an article on the president’s “Gold Card” idea, Jones clarified that any new visa program won’t be replacing EB-5 anytime soon.
On February 26th, 2025, President Trump revealed his idea for a “Gold Card” visa that would potentially offer a green card and path to citizenship in exchange for a $5 million investment. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick went even further, suggesting that this Gold Card program would replace the EB-5 Immigrant Investor Program.
The next 24 hours saw a flurry of articles and statements from across the EB-5 industry, many of which were rife with speculation as to what might happen to current and future EB-5 investors if EB-5 were to be eliminated in favor of this new program. Thankfully, some cooler heads were able to provide a bit of clarity.
JTC Head of Specialty Administration and General Counsel USA Jill Jones contributed some insights to an article from The Real Deal. As experts in the field are aware, the president can’t eliminate EB-5 through executive action. The program can only be terminated by Congress, which reauthorized the Regional Center Program through 2027 with the EB-5 Reform and Integrity Act of 2022 (RIA).
“For current projects and investors, there should be minimal immediate concern,” said Jones in the article. Any petitions filed before September 30th, 2026, are grandfathered in and will be adjudicated based on the current law, regardless of what happens with EB-5 in the future.
It’s also important to note that the RIA instituted a range of integrity measures and protections for innocent investors, and raised the minimum investment amounts to $800,000 for projects in rural and high-unemployment areas, and $1,050,000 for other projects. Both of these changes conflict with Secretary Lutnick’s comments that EB-5 has been “full of nonsense, make-believe and fraud” and that it was a “low price” way to get a green card.
Thanks to Jill for setting the record straight and ensuring EB-5 stakeholders don’t panic. We’ll all soon learn what the Gold Card proposal entails and continue our work fighting for reauthorization of the Regional Center Program and the continuation of a healthy EB-5 program.
You can read the full article here.
