The Gold Card, the $100K H‑1B Fee, and the End of Paper Checks

Overview

In this episode of Immigration Uncovered, host James Pittman and attorney Divij Kishore delve into three significant developments affecting U.S. immigration policy: the new USCIS rule mandating electronic payments, the controversial $100,000 H-1B filing fee, and the introduction of the Trump Gold Card.

Amid these discussions, Kishore emphasizes that such policy changes create uncertainty, urging practitioners and clients to remain adaptable in this evolving landscape. The conversation highlights vital implications for immigration lawyers, their practices, and the clients they serve in navigating these ongoing changes in U.S. immigration law.

Episode Transcript

James Pittman: Welcome back to Immigration Uncovered. This is the 8AM podcast where we explore the tools, strategies, and evolving policy shaping US immigration law and how immigration lawyers can thrive in the face of it all. I'm your host, James Pittman, today we're joined once again by Divij Kishore, founder of Flagship Law, for an encore conversation that couldn't be more timely. We're gonna dig into three big developments that are actually reshaping the landscape right now for immigration lawyers and their clients. And the first segment we're gonna talk about the new USCIS rule, which does away with paper payment instruments, no more paper checks or money orders, and mandates electronic payments only, what that means for you, your firm, and your clients. Second, we're gonna talk about the massive new $100,000 h one b filing fee. What's real? What's still unclear? How who who does it apply to, and how employers should respond. And lastly, we're gonna in our third segment, we're gonna talk about the latest on the Trump gold card and the administration's plan to build it on the back of the EB1 and EB2 statutory framework, along with the legal and political challenges that may lie ahead for that initiative. So whether you're tracking these changes for your clients, your practice, or your own peace of mind, this episode is for you. Let's dive into it. Divij, welcome. Welcome back.

Divij Kishore: Hi, James. Thanks for having me back.

James Pittman: All right. You are very welcome. So let's talk about this new USCIS fee rule. Starting I'm just going to give a brief summary. You and I know this, but I want everybody to know it. Starting 10/28/2025, USCIS will no longer accept paper checks, money orders, or other manual forms of payment. Already, this policy applies to all benefit types, and it's part of a broader federal initiative to modernize payment systems and reduce delays, fraud, and processing hours. So now under the new rule, applicants and petitioners must pay either with ACH debit or with a credit card payment. And there are two forms that have been promulgated to facilitate this. Okay? Form G1450, which has been out for several years, is a credit card authorization form. Now the new form that has come out is g sixteen fifty, and that is to authorize an ACH debit from a US bank account. USCIS is gonna reject filings that don't include proper electronic payment authorization. Alright? And if you get an insufficient funds or you put incorrect card details or something on the form, the entire application package is gonna be rejected and sent back to you. Now there is a narrow exemption process available for those who are unable to make electronic payments due to financial or technological limitations, but it's a narrow exceptions, not intended to be used frequently. Alright. There is a form that's being promulgated G1651 to still request permission to pay by check or money order. Approvals discretionary and not guaranteed. Now all these changes are coming out of executive order 14247, right, which directed federal agencies across the board to phase out paper transactions and adopt electronic payment systems wherever feasible. DHS and USCIS are framing this shift as a necessary modernization. All right. So let's talk about this. So, Divij, from what you've seen in practice, what kind of issues tend to come up when you're paying USCIS fees by credit card or ACH debit? Like, what are the concerns? What complications does that introduce?

Divij Kishore: So I guess I I wanna start by saying, James, that the credit card payment system, as you correctly mentioned, the form g fourteen fifty, has been in place for a while. Mhmm. My practice and I know several other practitioners have moved towards paying by credit card for particularly for a lot of our larger clients because we've seen some amount of I I don't know. I I think it's just a little smoother in terms of the filing process with the agency. And keep in mind that the mailroom is is an administrative office. They're not the most sophisticated adjudicators there. They're just looking at a case, processing the fees, scanning it, saying sending it to the adjudicator. So the credit card payment process is really, really helpful in some instances, at least. And but I would say that one of the big concerns for me and my clients is we don't want to print out a physical form that we then enclose in a FedEx package or a USPS package or or some other similar sort of consignment and send to the agency with our card information and certainly not our bank information, which may then get waylaid, land up in the wrong place, in the wrong hands, get misused. So we're really concerned about solutions that can protect us from potential fraud and misuse of our financial information, as are our clients.

James Pittman: Right. Now if you're I mean, if you were paying totally online through the e filing system, that would be a different story. But with g fourteen fifty or g sixteen fifty, when you are mailing in packages, you're you're gonna have to include some some payment information from a card or a bank account. So the question is, how do we mitigate the inherent security risks associated with mailing any payment or card information through the mails or even through FedEx? But before we get to that, let's break down sort of the idea of using the firm's credit card or the firm's bank account information versus using a client's credit card or a client's bank account information. I mean, I think most attorneys are obviously gonna prefer to use firm's sort of information rather than handle a client's financial information for a variety of reasons. What's your take on the pros and cons of each of those?

Divij Kishore: Well, I definitely want to limit liability exposure for the firm by collecting client card information or bank information. I I I would honestly not feel particularly happy or comfortable doing that. And I think the second consideration that plays into it for my clients and for me is that I take a very service oriented approach to my practice. Whatever I can do to make my clients' life as easy as possible, I do want to do. So if we take on that added burden of preparing the payment checks, etcetera, or whatever the payment system is, I know that that's been a practice that's been followed by you know, attorneys who are much senior to me and who've done this for many more years than I have way before payment by credit card was even a system that was an option. So I think that that's a system that suddenly works, and I want to be able to offer that as a solution to my clients so that they're not really dealing with mailing me checks when the case is ready, etcetera. I want them to be able to pay me upfront, and then we just take care of the filing for them when the time comes.

James Pittman: Okay. Now you've already mentioned that you have been transitioning towards credit card payments for a while. How do you feel about them allowing ACH debit, and how would you feel about putting, you know, the firm's, you know, bank account information on a form and sending that through the mail?

Divij Kishore: Very uncomfortable. I I would not want to share any ACH information. And and, obviously, if I were to be doing it, where's the line again? Because the way I collect filing fees from clients is that it sits in a trust account as it's meant to. And I would certainly not it's my responsibility to ensure that those trust funds are not commingled with firm funds, and they're secure, etcetera. I would not want to take any risks. So do I now create a second trust account, which is just meant for paying filing fees? I think that that puts an immense burden on firms, practitioners, people in my organization who are dealing with preparing these forms and and documents. So as far as trying to make it as easy as possible, I think that credit cards are the are the way to go, mainly because you have the option of using virtual credit cards or VCCs, which have really delivered for us so far.

James Pittman: Yeah. So let's get to that. Let's talk about sort of what are the some of the security features that can be instituted on a credit card that make make that the optimal or the best best of the choices.

Divij Kishore: Well, the the glaring or the low hanging fruit is really the fact that you create a credit card, a virtual credit card, with a specific number that you may use only for that filing, right, or for that particular client. You limit your exposure also by assigning a certain amount of your credit limit as a firm to that credit card. So let's say your total credit limit is $50,000 and you want to assign 10 credit cards, each of which have a separate filing fee associated with it, I can set a limit of 3,000 per credit card and just make sure that those credit that those virtual credit cards, when I ship out their information, because form fourteen fifty specifically asks me to mention who's the cardholder, what's their name, who's the petitioner or applicant, what's the card number, what's the CVV code, what's the amount for the card. I mean, that's all the information that anyone would need. So when I send that information out, I'm ensuring that I'm not risking my whole $50,000 credit limit, but I am limiting my risk to $3,000. And let's say something does get lost, all I need to do is mark that card as never to be used again, and I can always replenish the limit on that. But in that way, I ensure that there is no scope for misuse in the future as well.

James Pittman: Yeah. So so instead of using the firm's main credit card with the total credit limit, using a virtual card that has a lower limit that's ideally geared toward the amount of the filing fee and not higher, that really limits your exposure. And also having the technical ability to turn off a card. Like, let's say you've sent your virtual card information in with your package and you see, the USCIS charge has been made on the card, you can immediately turn off the card so that no further charges can be made on that card. Those are two very, very important features. And full disclosure, we at 8AM have a solution that does that, and it's called SmartSpend. And I'm sure, you know, viewers will see more about it. But I wanna talk about the fact that you agree that that is that would be an optimal solution. So, you know, you would have so let's get into the aspect of it that you need a way to correlate the payment with the case that it belongs to. How do you how do you currently do that?

Divij Kishore: Well, currently, it's it's a it's a bit of a onerous process where I have an and and I like the fact that, you know, I can use an administrator with the virtual credit card so that there's one person in my firm who who has that responsibility, and it doesn't have to be me specifically. So I have to go into the bank and, you know, report fraud to them or something along those lines. My administrator can just turn the card off. But that said, my administrator is doing much more than that. They're connecting card information to each case. They're ensuring that. And and they're doing that physically to some extent at this time. They're ensuring that when the card is used and we get that virtual notification that this card has been used, they're actually going to our case management system, which is Docketwise, and putting in information to say this card was charged for this amount on this day. And therefore, we know that all the correct charges have happened. Therefore, the filing's received. Therefore, it's being processed. So we can give the client a little bit of comfort. I can say that those clients that have either shied away from using this process or have just unfortunately not had the opportunity to use it yet with us, we've had some instances of pretty complicated, you know, refiling processes where I've had to put this cover letter on top saying, please do not reject. Right? And and that's caused delays, obviously.

James Pittman: Yeah. Now, I mean, an important aspect of this is if you when you're using virtual cards, you you're gonna assign you're gonna create a number of virtual cards and assign the virtual cards specifically to that case. So there's gonna be an identifier with the virtual card that identifies it as being belonging to that specific case. So when you see the charge made by USCIS, you'll instantly be able to see that on your dashboard and you'll see which virtual card that charge was made on. And the identifier of that card matches the identity of the case. Therefore, there's no chance of confusion as to, you know, which case's filing fee has just been charged. I think that's a critical aspect of it. And that's been really a pain point for firms that have tried to move toward credit card payments is just that unlike a paper check, on a paper check, first of all, on the memo line of the check, you would have written, of course, the case type, the a number, and perhaps the client's last name. When USCIS would run that check, would be able to see which check number was cashed and that check number, of course, you would have marked in your matter that you used such and such a check to pay the filing fee. Also, would have had a check image where you would have had the image of which check and which client it belonged to would have been charged or collected. Now you don't have that. So when USCIS charges a credit card, there is no identifier that you can look at on your when you open your credit card app or, you know, look at a credit card statement or something, you're not gonna see something specifically where USCIS has put any notation that's gonna show up in your in your credit card, you know, list of transactions that's gonna identify the case. So you need a way to identify that specific card, a virtual card with that specific case. Now, Divij, can you think of are there any other considerations that you think are important in this process of of using virtual cards?

Divij Kishore: I think one of the things that I've seen on the smart smart spend solution that really stood out to me is the fact that you were just mentioning, James, that you can name the card whatever you want. So if I wanna name the card company a and I only wanna use that card for company a's filings, I know that when company a card is charged, then, you know, I can I can see exactly which company account is being charged for how much filing fees, and maybe guess what case I'm filing depending on how many volume how many cases I'm filing in a day? But I can make it much more granular than that. I can generate literally infinite cards and make it so that each employee at company a has a virtual credit card that's associated with them. Obviously, that will get unwieldy beyond the point, and we'll get a little bit uncomfortable to be able to use that. But the fact that I can name the cards like that certainly helps. And I think that one of the things that your team told me about was the fact that you're building out the solution so that you can now automatically connect it into the case management side side of the system as well so that it's the CMS' job to track which card is being charged for which amounts for which case, which I think is is a great solution. The other thing that I would mention, of course, is that I'm hoping that this is not going to be another one of those switch and bait and switch systems, you know, where we're putting down card information, and and we want to try to limit exposure as far as possible. Therefore, we say only charge the card if US Department of Homeland Security is trying to charge the card, and nobody else, no other vendor can be used. And the minute we do that, let's say that there is a vendor that you know, let's say they decide to change the description for their vendor online or with the card system, whatever Mastercard, Visa is being used, the minute we do that, and and they've made a switch on their side, we suddenly have a bunch of cases that are rejected because the card was declined, and we have a bunch of fees that needs to be paid because of rejected payment methods. So obviously, there's there's a challenge as to depending on your volume, how much credit limit you can have. There's a challenge as to how much further you can mitigate your risks. And I think that this is something that the industry will respond to in time.

James Pittman: Yes. As roll out this solution to immigration lawyers, again, it's called SmartSpend, you know, those we will obviously be tracking very closely, you know, any concerns that come up and the feedback that we're getting from practitioners. What's your sense of the general vibe from your colleagues or other attorneys that you talk to regularly? Do you think most firms have already gone a distance towards switching to a credit card? Or do you think there are firms that are anxious about the change or are optimistic or somewhere in between?

Divij Kishore: Based on what I'm seeing, there's definitely some anxiety. I mean, let's be honest. Our practice is not one that's the quickest to adopt advancements in technology. Right? And certainly, not all law firms are the same. So there is definitely some anxiety associated with doing it. I am seeing more and more practitioners prioritize it in terms of finding out how it works, what the best solution is, asking questions, trying to find you know, who they can work with, what their specific needs are, how can they make it so that it's, as I said, as painless as possible for them and for their customers. But I think that we need to change the way that we've been doing things in in some senses. I think that firms are in the habit of dealing with volume filings that have lots of checks in them, and there are systems in place for scanning checks and making sure that checks are tracked, etcetera, I think that those systems will change. And that'll inevitably mean that you will have you know, you'll you'll need to either retrain your workforce or you'll need to find a workforce that's capable of transitioning with the techno technological change. And I think that with this change coming in and further changes expected very soon down the road, I'd say that you want someone who's who's going to be agile in their responsiveness to those changes. And I think that's true of any practice, any business. And at the end of the day, we are a business. So we do need to remain agile as far as we possibly can.

James Pittman: Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, it's coming soon, and we're we are very excited about the rollout. Again, we are we our solution is SmartSpend, and please inquire if you're interested. Alright. So let's move on to segment two of today's program. We're gonna talk now about the

Divij Kishore: Before we move on, I wanna echo that. I wanna say that I've seen SmartSpend. I've had the opportunity of seeing a demo of it, and I'm very excited about it. So so I would say that it's definitely something that's worth looking into.

James Pittman: Well, it's a major change, this switch, doing away with paper checks. You know, there's we're definitely going to see, you know, how things evolve. We're extremely excited about smart spend, and we really feel that we've got all the bases covered in terms of smart spend as really being the ideal solution for immigration lawyers who want to transition to credit card payments for USCIS filing fees. And, Divij, you actually saw SmartSpend. We've shown it to you. So what was your impression?

Divij Kishore: I I was very excited by what I saw saw. I appreciate the demo, and I will say that I'm really excited for the solution to be there. I am on Docketwise. My whole firm is on Docketwise. And we've been looking for a solution that can integrate better. From my perspective, credit card payments are already a thing. We've been using it extensively for a number of our clients. So and and I don't see us moving away from it for sure, certainly not with the new rule coming in. So I'm really excited about it. I'm and I'm glad that eight AM's come up with this solution. I think it's very timely and very needed.

James Pittman: Absolutely. Absolutely. Alright. Now in segment two, we're now gonna talk about the 100 k in dollars, $100,000 h one b filing fee. So what so, Divij, what exactly do we know so far about the the fee? Who does it apply to? When is this taking effect? And does it affect petitions that are already in the pipeline?

Divij Kishore: Well, that's the confusing bit. And I think that it's only gotten more confusing since the proclamation came out. So I will say proclamation came out a little over a week ago, September 19. That weekend was horrifying because I was getting calls left, right, and center starting from I was I I I was out at a comedy show, and I just could not enjoy a minute of that comedy show because I had frantic calls coming in from from clients who were outside The US, from companies and executives who were concerned about their employees who were potentially you know, when you tell someone to pay a $100,000 fees on a on a professional that they're already employing, that immediately makes it almost impossible for them to continue to employ that professional. So I had clients who were panicking left, right, and center. And I don't think that the administration was cognizant of what the impact of of a of a proclamation like this would be on the market. Or what would be worse is that the administration was, in fact, cognizant of it and went ahead and did it anyway. I want to give the administration the benefit of the doubt here, but I am struggling to do that for a few reasons. Within a day of the proclamation coming out, a clarification was issued, which I think ran entirely at odds with the letter of the proclamation and clarified somehow that the proclamation would not apply to anyone who already has an H1B visa or is an H1B visa status. The other thing I think as immigration practitioners, we all appreciate and understand, and we encourage our clients to understand and appreciate as well, is that there's a difference between status and visa. So does the proclamation apply to visa issuance? The letter of the proclamation initially seemed to indicate to me that it was a fee that was required for visa issuance. But the more information that comes out about it, the more and more I'm convinced that it's about status. Therefore, originally, I was thinking that it might not impact anybody who is a national of Canada since they're typically exempt from the visa requirement anyway. But that, I mean, that seems like it's it's not really the case. And I think there's more confusion happening based on the fur you know, whatever further information is coming out. In fact, I think just this weekend, Howard gave another interview where he caused even further confusion by saying that the proclamation goes into effect in February 2026, But there is no such distinction. In fact, the letter of the proclamation says 09/21/2025. And I have clients that are cap exempt institutions, educational institutions, who rely sometimes on foreign workers, highly skilled foreign workers, that they've trained in their own universities and and hospitals, and they're not able to employ them anymore because or they're not able to be certain that they can employ them anymore because they just don't have the ability to pay this $100,000 fee.

James Pittman: So wait. Now they you're saying that the the the cap exempt employers, the nonprofit research institutes and and so forth, these will not be exempt from the fee?

Divij Kishore: Well, I'm I'm hoping they will be, but we don't know that yet. There

James Pittman: Okay. That has been

Divij Kishore: provision for an exception to be made, and I'm assuming that national interest exceptions will apply to based on the rhetoric, everybody except, what was the phrase, inexpensive tech consultants and trainees should not be eliminated as per Mr. Lutnick. But I think that that's that's shortsighted. That does not reflect the reality of the market at all. And and I think that that's only going to cause more and more confusion. But for the immediate future, the biggest concern lies with cap exempt employers who have no way of knowing for certain that they are, in fact, exempt from this $100,000 fees. And so they can't take the risk of filing petitions for people who, you know, they they may be thinking about filing for in a couple of months unless they get clarity on what the rule is actually going to apply to.

James Pittman: Okay. Now and this is not even I mean, the other fees that you're already paying, the visa fraud and security fee, the ACWIA fee, the so called additional filing fee and the standard filing fee, those in addition to this new fee. So your 100,000 doesn't even cover everything. I mean, you've still got several thousand more of fees that you're already paying. This is just on top of it all. Do we have clarity yet on how this fee is actually going to be paid? You expected to just simply include again, we were just talking about in the first segment about credit card payments of USCIS fees becoming mandatory or ACH payments. What do they expect people to do, run a $100,000 charge on a card or what? Do we have any idea how they're expecting it to be paid?

Divij Kishore: I don't think that there's any clarity there at all. In fact, we don't have clarity right now as to whether it applies per beneficiary, whether it applies per year, whether it applies per organization. Is it one time forever? Is it one time every three years? There is just so much confusion that has been caused by this proclamation. And and we will speak about another proclamation that came out on the same date around the same time about the gold card. But I don't I don't think that this is governance, let alone good governance. This is just not governance. This is causing chaos, confusion. If if somebody told me that you have a workforce of 300 people who some of whom may potentially need visas, I'm going to be I'm gonna say that I already have a plan for next year in terms of how many people I need, how many people I'm expecting will leave, how many people will I need to add to my workforce. Therefore, I am already doing the math in terms of what I need to earn during the next fiscal and what I need to be spending during the next fiscal on recruitment. I'm already out there at universities, at job fairs, trying to find the best skill that I can. It's not about nationality for me. It's about where do I find the most qualified worker? Mhmm. And where do I find the most qualified professional? And so for the administration to take a sledgehammer to the process and say, we're just going to destroy anybody who is not big tech and anybody who's not in absolutely the upper echelons of what can and cannot be acceptable costs to employ somebody. I mean, I'm just, in any case, at I'm I'm not gonna be in the running anymore. I'm not gonna be able to employ anyone anymore. And we've not even talked about, James, so far, the fact that under the h one b modernization rule, entrepreneurs can be h one b visa holders now. So if you tell an entrepreneur in in my view, most entrepreneur founders are going to have to pay themselves a level four salary because, typically, salary is tied to the level of your responsibilities. Now that's kind of in the air right now because the administration's talking about wage level being tied to how much the salary is, and therefore that being the criteria to determine how many times an individual has run through the H1B lottery. And I have a completely separate opinion on that. I don't think that that's fair or reflects what the regulations say. But that being said, if we were to put that issue aside for a minute, and I was to tell one of my clients who's a founder entrepreneur that not only do you need to pay yourself a level four salary, but the cost to start your company is over and above all the other expenses that you have to incur. It's a $100,000. It's just fantastical to me. No no entrepreneur in their right mind is going to want to do that, And therefore, you're essentially doing away with the h one b entrepreneurship and leaving only the other options that that existed before, like the l one or the o one or the e two.

James Pittman: Yeah. Tragic, really, in my view. Tragic. Have they said whether amendments to existing petitions, you know, where someone hasn't filed or hasn't paid this fee before but they have to do an amended petition for whatever reason, or let's say they're on an H-1B but they want to change of employer and have a new employer file, the so called, you know, the so called H-1B transfer. Or do a change of status, you know, to H-1B, are those being treated as new petitions or renewals? Do we even know?

Divij Kishore: Well, again, to be honest, I don't think that the people who are issuing the clarifications have the have the level of understanding about the h one b visa program that they would need to to speak about this in an informed manner. So Okay. The clarification that's been issued so far states that the rule is prospective. Therefore, it should not impact anybody who's already in The US as an H1B visa holder. But to my mind, that is so I mean, I'm I'm trying I'm struggling to find a word that's better than, you know, completely unaware that I don't see how you how as in in the positions that these senior administrators are, they can allow themselves to speak about this in this manner. There needs to be thoughtful rule making. And and I think, again, again, not to beat a dead horse, but I think that Howard Lutnick is doing a major disservice to American business, to American consumers, to to to all Americans by speaking in the manner that he is because he goes about saying that I'm going to issue a clarification, and this is going to be well thought out, and and everything will be clear by February 2026. Well, mister Lutnick, that's great, but you've already issued the proclamation. Your administration has already issued the proclamation. I mean, why am I

James Pittman: Why not do the normal rulemaking process and have ninety days of comment?

Divij Kishore: Exactly. Speak to stakeholders. Let me come and speak to you about what the h one b program involves. Or, James, invite you need to be invited to speak on why the h one b program needs to be thoughtfully upgraded if they are talking about an upgrade. James Pittman: Yeah. It's it's quite it's it really, you know, it really is hard to believe doing things in this kind of a a slapdash, stop, go, red light, green light sort of way when you're the the The import and the magnitude of the effectiveness on companies, especially startup companies, on foreign workers who are already in The United States, some of our best students in our STEM programs. It's, you know, it's hard to overstate what the impact of this change could be. So, it's it's it it really makes makes you wonder why things are being done in such an abrupt manner. And they're not Let's yeah.

Divij Kishore: They're not wrong. The h one b visa category is overwhelmingly utilized by the IT sector. It's overwhelmingly full of individuals who are of Indian and Chinese nationality, but that's not a bad thing. Those are skills that are needed. Big the big five tech companies don't exist in in a vacuum. They exist with a whole network of service providers around them. In fact, I I have had clients who started their businesses after working with, let's say, an IBM for several years, had their names on a patent at that organization, and then essentially set up a services company whose main role was to be super specialized on dealing with servicing the technology solution that IBM sold and that relied on the patent that this individual invented. Now, to say that the workforce of 500 tech professionals who was working with this inventor, entrepreneur, is something that should not exist in The US or is taking away jobs from The US is absurd. And the whole economic infrastructure I should not have to explain this to the administration, but the economic infra infrastructure is global. There is a certain ease of doing business with India because language is not a barrier, because a lot of the business practices are similar, because a lot of the legal practices are set up so that you can make things happen more easily. And to say that we are going to cut ourselves off from that side of the workforce is absurd. And at the same time, so mister Lutnick is saying that we should that US companies, if they want to hire these skilled consultants, these services exist abroad. Therefore, they should hire them there. I mean, if we only talk about immigration law, maybe there might be some far off justification to to make a statement like that. But we are not existing in a vacuum either. We know that in early September, I think it was the 5, the US care act bill was initiated in Congress. And that statute, should it be passed and become law, would levy a 25% excise tax on any company that relies on a foreign workforce. So on the one hand, you're saying you need to rely workforce. On the other hand, you're saying that we're going to make it more expensive for you on anyway. And at the same time, you're kind of contradicting yourself by saying that by employing a foreign workforce, you're somehow depressing US salaries, which is not the case.

James Pittman: Did they mention whether this is this fee and this this rule is going to have a sunset date, or are they is this supposed to be a one time thing where they're just gonna do it for the 2026, you know, h one b season, or is this indefinite? Has that been made clear?

Divij Kishore: Well, they said, as per the as per the text of the proclamation so far, it's valid for one year for the moment and can be extended. I think that's also a disservice. I think you need to give companies some sort of clarity on that. But even if it is only valid for one year, I think one year in the tech industry and and many other industries, pharma, for example, is a long time. I mean, if you're going to tell one of the big five tech companies that either pay us for your workforce, you know, $100,000 times whatever your foreign national workforce is, or move your workforce to Canada, India, China. These are the countries that are already benefiting from this proclamation. I have had clients who reached out and and said, you know, we're speaking about doing a you know, just essentially having a setup with a company that's based out of one of these countries. That's going to be our workforce outside The US until things have calmed down. Of course, I mean, in the short term, it might not pinch us that much. But in the long term, that means that a foreign workforce is being trained. It's not like US employers are going to take their employees and ask them to go to Canada and work there. For the most part, that won't happen. Or, you know so, essentially, you're training a workforce that's there, and then that workforce is improving that economy. That economy's technical skill is improving because of what we have done in America to develop technologies, to be at the front of the technology race, and to remain at the front of the technology race. To say that we're going to let all that talent go is absurd. At the same time, when we make a rule like this, think about all the students who are in degree programs at all levels in US universities. What happens to them? Are they going to lose their job offers? They're hunting for jobs right now. They might already have an offer. Will the job offer remain? Will it go away? Will they be able to remain in The US? People who've been on optional practical training in STEM programs after completing STEM programs for two and a half years, three years, Those are highly skilled workers who have trained in US educational institutions, who've been trained by American companies to work on American technology. And now you're saying that somehow, in order to employ them, these employers need to pay a $100,000 fees is, you know, is is kind of absurd to say. And some practitioners take the view that this is kind of a negotiation where the administration might come back and say, okay, not $100,000, but $5,000, which is what happened with the gold card. But, I mean, come on. And that's this is not the way we can do a negotiation.

James Pittman: It's not. I have let me ask you a couple questions. A couple questions in a row here. First of all, do we at least have clarity that it's $100,000 per beneficiary? Not just $100,000 per petitioner to participate in the program, but they're gonna have to pay the 100 k for each beneficiary. Is that clear now?

Divij Kishore: For the most part, yes. It is $100,000 per beneficiary, but there is some confuse confusing information about that as well.

James Pittman: Now it's this being imposed through an executive proclamation, not through the normal formal rulemaking, which, you know, has to do with publishing a notice in the Federal Register and soliciting commenting, which we were just talking about. So what legal or constitutional challenges do you expect to arise? And what is the status of the litigation so far?

Divij Kishore: Well, as far as I know, there's I'm not aware of any litigation that's been filed yet. Do know that there are several practitioners who are very keen to litigate it. And I, among others, are more than willing to take this litigation up pro bono purely because of how critical it is and of how likely success would be, in my view. I think that there is a challenge that lies under the Administrative Procedures Act for this rule to be blatantly arbitrary and capricious. It is clearly meant to be discriminatory in more ways than one. I do not think that this rule or proclamation withstands the test of a fair judiciary, which I know we have in this country. And we have a lot of faith in that judiciary. So I don't think that it withstands the test, but I don't think it's been tested just yet. At least I'm not aware of any complaints that have been filed and proceed further. And I think that the reason for that might be that the administration is continuously moving the goalposts. Because I will say I sat down and I started drafting. On Saturday morning, I started drafting to be prepared to file a complaint. And I could not once the clarification came out because the question is going to be, who is the plaintiff? What is the immediate harm to them? Can I request interim relief in the short term? And assuming that interim relief can be requested, to what extent am I going to be successful in finding the plaintiff that's most likely to succeed? Because, obviously, I don't want to litigate this unless I'm reasonably certain of level of success. At the same time, I don't want there to be another situation where, you know, the administration comes and moves the goalposts as they did in the in the context of the SEVIS revocation that we went through a little bit earlier for for students this year.

James Pittman: Yeah. Now, I mean, there seems to be well, let me ask you. Do you think this is part of a broader shift toward favoring sort of people who are at the higher echelon of the economic spectrum because we're gonna talk in a few minutes about the Trump gold card. And this $100,000 fee for h one b is, again, as as you said, is really something that is not of consequence only to very profitable larger companies. So, you know, does that seem this doesn't seem coincidental to me. Does it does it to you that, the administration's sort of ethos around immigration, around employment based immigration seems to be that this is something which should be rarified, should only be available to you know, the big fish, so to speak. And the government should maybe try to collect as much of a toll on that road as can while they're, you know, in order for people to use the system.

Divij Kishore: I am certainly getting that sense. In fact, I think what you'll hear from my tone antenna in this conversation, James, is that I've I've had a significant shift from where I was trying to keep away from being overtly critical of the administration to I think I need to be very plain and direct about what what I think is happening right now, which is that we've moved away from the the priority being unlawful criminal aliens in The US, which I don't think that they're on both sides of the aisle. I don't think anyone is saying that those people that that's not a problem that needs to be resolved. But at the same time, we've moved away from legal immigration into some realm that is somehow ending up promoting monopolization of the market even more. Because let's be honest. How many of the big tech big five tech companies started off as big five tech? And we are currently in the middle of the AI race. I file multiple petitions every week arguing that this individual is in the national interest because their work in this realm of AI is critical to improve health care, is critical to improve economy, is critical to ensure that we don't have another 2008 incident on our hands. And now the administration is saying that apparently, only companies that are competent to do this are the big five tech companies and perhaps a few other companies in their ratified orbit and nobody else, which is I mean, if that were the case, then Tesla may not have existed in The US today. And it would have existed elsewhere because you're not going going to take away that company's founder's skill and capability and drive away from them, and they were going to be successful no matter where they were. The fact that they were in America made them accomplished in this country. The fact that an an individual who never graduated Harvard has now set up a company that is essentially in every aspect of our lives and is revolutionizing what the world will look like fifteen, twenty years from now. And I'm talking about Meta now. The fact that that individual had status in in The US and never had to worry about this is is a pure matter of luck. Why would you push that luck away? Why would you risk losing talent that comes to this country to train, study, and then become part of our awesome economy and our awesome technological health care, legal, educational sectors, why would you push them away from this market? We want to attract this talent. Everybody is on the same page. We want this talent in here.

James Pittman: Yeah. Sometime sometimes somehow, we we the the ethos metastasized from America first to kind of like cronies first.

Divij Kishore: Yeah. Sadly.

James Pittman: Yeah. And monopolists first. So so with that, first of all, before I move on to the Trump gold card, anything else you wanna add?

Divij Kishore: Oh, I have so much to say on this.

James Pittman: Anything else that we have time for right now? I'm sure we're gonna discuss these issues again.

Divij Kishore: Yes. Absolutely. I will say that this look. I mean, this conversation might be stale by the time this this episode is published. Things are changing so quickly that I'm having a hard time keeping up for with it, let alone my clients. The one thing I will say is don't get misdirected by social media. Please speak to a professional. If you have questions, if you have doubts, we are still succeeding. Please speak with a professional so that we can succeed for you.

James Pittman: Abs absolutely. And I hope it won't be stale because it's only gonna be a matter of just a few days until this episode is published from the time that we're recording. But I hear what you're saying. Things are evolving literally on a daily basis. So it is it is totally conceivable that there could be new developments by the time people are listening to this. So now in our third segment, we are gonna revisit the Trump Gold Card, which you and I spent a good deal of time last episode talking about. Now we've there's, you know, been a new development, and and it's the Gold Card proposal. Let me just give a little introduction to this. So this happened on September 19. The president signed an executive order creating the Gold Card Visa program or at least purporting to create it. The basic idea is this, a foreign national who offers a gift of $1,000,000 or the amount of the gift will be $2,000,000 if it's being made by a corporation on behalf of an individual. That gift being made to The United States, and the individual would qualify for an expedited process for obtaining an immigrant visa. Now the order directs the secretaries of commerce, state, and homeland security to coordinate implementation and establish an application procedure, adjudication standards, timing, etcetera. Now, it also instructs that the gift amounts the gift fee or gift not fee, but the gift has to be deposited into a separate fund to be established and that's going to be maintained in the treasury department and used to promote uscom commerce and industry. So now so many questions about this. Let's start at the top. First of all, what are they actually proposing with this $1,000,000 pathway to a green card?

Divij Kishore: Well, let's start by acknowledging that it's an 80% discount. Right? So it's like putting a for sale sign on America, which I take offense to. Secondly, what is being proposed is that individuals with high net worth will be able to give a million dollars of their own money or $2,000,000 of money from their companies or organizations, which I mean, let's be honest. Organizations are only going to do this for their very, very top executives, if at all, founders. Right? And so they give that money to the Department of Commerce. The Department of Commerce keeps it in a separate fund. In exchange for giving that money to the department, These individuals get essentially a speedy green card to The US. However, in July 2025, Joseph Fadlow became the new director of USCIS, And he has already come on record to say that, look, USCIS remains committed to its stringent policies on adjudicating and doing background checks. And what really takes time in adjudicating any green application, and at the end of the day, the gold card, whatever brand name you might put on it, is a green card, is is going to require those security checks to be done. So I don't see how the administration expects to adjudicate these green card applications any quicker unless they somehow get the USCIS to work with them on a different standard than what typical green card applicants are are held to. But that being said, that, you know, that that, I guess, can be tested. But at the end of the day, this is not and I said this the last time as well. This is not a sensible approach to it because why would you want people you know, it's it's like asking oligarchs to come to The US to pay their way into this country as against asking individuals to put their money into The US economy, create 10 jobs, and then generate more revenue for the economy. I don't see how this is better than the EB five program, And it was originally pitched as a replacement. So I absolutely don't think that it's that.

James Pittman: Now in the first announcement way back several months ago of the Trump Gold Card where they were talking about the $5,000,000 limit, there was something in there about exempting the applicants from taxation, from US taxation on their income earned outside of The United States, which would be a special carve out of the tax law that US citizens currently do not enjoy, but people who are supposed to apply for the $5,000,000 Trump Gold Card would enjoy. So leave aside the practical details of actually doing that and whether that's even possible. Has that proposal survived into this next version, or has that been taken out?

Divij Kishore: There is no word on that tax exemption status continuing or surviving. But I will say that there's still a lot of rhetoric around this, James. So Mhmm. Obviously, the the gold card is being proposed as something that would fall in the category of a national interest waiver, which is something that we were kind of anticipating based on what we were hearing before. But how does that apply to, you know, per country limits and things like that? Right now, EB2 NIW is oversubscribed across the world. The other issue here is if that tax exemption is to survive, I mean, why would you want to give up for people in in the gold card category? Again, completely lost on that score. And I think that there's a lot more happening in terms of the rhetoric around a platinum card being issued, which will be for a value of 5,000,000. There was some interview, I think, in The Wall Street Journal, which spoke about suspending green card issuance in all other categories except the gold card and the platinum card, which is just I mean, that would be the stuff of nightmares.

James Pittman: That yeah. That's that's like a dark fantasy. But let's let's so so let's just clarify because I don't want people to get confused because it can be confusing. The the $5,000,000 Trump gold card now basically has been discounted down to the 1,000,000 slash 2,000,000 gold card. But the the the previous sort of vision of the Trump gold card where it had the special tax carve out on income earned abroad, that seems to have now been transformed into the proposed Trump Platinum Card. Now, government set up a website, and I believe it's trumpgoldcard.gov, if I'm not mistaken, where basically the application process or at least the intake process for the $1,000,000 $2,000,000 Trump Gold Card is open, but the application for the eventual Trump Platinum Card, which is supposed to include the special tax carve out, that's not open. You can just sort of, I think, throw your email in there to go on a mailing list if it if it if it ever becomes a reality. Yeah. So I just wanna be clear that that's that's sort of where things stand. Now what the when I was reading through the executive order, so the way that this is supposed to be implemented is to utilize existing EB one and EB two statutory frameworks to support this program. So the idea being that and this, again, sounds to me, sounds very strange. I I get what they're trying to do, but strange. That the the donation amount, this gift, is supposed to substitute for proof that a person has extraordinary ability. So we have regulations when USCIS adjudicates an EB1 petition. There are regulations spelling out what sort of proof you need to submit to prove that the person has extraordinary ability. Things like cover they've been featured in major media. They're a member of prestigious organizations and so on. But just saying that, well, they can come up with a million dollars, therefore they have to be extraordinary. I mean, I don't want to sound you know, just totally cynical, but, I mean, really, that's what it sounds like, Divij.

Divij Kishore: You're not sounding cynical at all. I mean, that's it's a pay to play system. It's I mean, let me pay you some money and you put me on Fox News. I mean, I'm happy to do it, but do I feel good about it at the end of the day? And would you want me speaking to you as though I am someone who is extremely informed about a subject just because I paid somebody to be able to speak to you like that? That's, I mean, that's out of the question. I think that this is just it's shortsighted. It is completely misplaced. I don't see how it works. I think it needs to be challenged. I think it will be challenged. And based on what my client profile looks like, everyone who I've spoken with, nobody really wants to give a million dollars of their own money to the federal government in exchange for a gold card. And the people who would want to do that, I think, are going to be extremely desperate. Or I I I mean, I I don't even know for sure what that client profile would look like or what that investor investor profile would look like. But to say that they are people who are extraordinary ability is just, again, fantastical.

James Pittman: I I I I I don't doubt that there are some people around the world for various reasons who would pay a million dollars to come and live in The US. I mean, that I don't doubt. But I think that, first of all, with the way that this is being done outside of the normal legislative process does not exactly, let's say, inspire confidence that your gift would be, let's say, 100% properly taken care of and that you would actually derive all the benefits of your gift once you've made your gift. That's that would be one concern that I can imagine some people having. But let's let's just be clear that they're they're they're tying it to EB one. So EB one is extraordinary ability. The tie in there. EB2, they're saying that essentially you would be classified either as a person coming to do work in the national interest, right, via the national interest waiver provision, or a person of exceptional ability in particular field. So rather than extraordinary ability where you don't where you can self petition, like EB1 extraordinary ability, you can self petition. EB two exceptional ability, you need an employer to petition for you. So that's that's the the clause there where they they would have the company sponsoring you having to donate 2,000,000. That's how that fits into it. The EB2 national interest, you would be usually sponsoring yourself. Although you could have an employer sponsor for a national interest waiver. It relieves the requirement of perm. You don't need to go through a perm. You can also sponsor yourself, which would be a 1,000,000. If an employer was sponsoring you under the national interest waiver, would be 2,000,000. Now as far as so so as far as that working in practice like that, what what level of detail do we have about how that's actually supposed to take place? When do they supposed to pay this gift? How did they pay this gift? Has any of that been discussed?

Divij Kishore: Not disclosed yet. It's it it directs the administration to make rules within the next six weeks, I think, which I mean, I I was just speaking with a with a client a couple of days ago who had their e b one a extraordinary ability petition denied on the grounds that they did not meet the holistic test of EB1A accomplishment. That case was particularly interesting to me because the agency said that your salary of some $500,000 a year is demonstrative of one of the criteria for the EB1A that is you're paid a high salary in recognition of your extraordinary ability in your field. But when they did the holistic analysis, the adjudicating officer found that your salary is high, but not so high that it demonstrates sustained national and international acclaim, which, again, I mean, I don't know what you're talking about there because how is $500,000 not a high enough salary for that? And how can it be one but not the other? But my concern is that when these are the criteria on which the agency is adjudicating really B1A petitions, and now the agency is going to do kind of a switch and say that just because you gave a million dollars to the government, you are extraordinary ability. That kind of runs contradictory in my mind to what the requirement of the law is and to itself. So how does the agency have does the agency have a coherent policy across all these requirements? Does the agency believe that you can do both where on the one hand, your salary is not sufficiently high to demonstrate extraordinary ability, but at the same time, you know, a one time payment of a million dollars, which let's be honest, for someone who is earning $500,000 a year is not going to be that much of an ask, is, you know, are they going to are you going to say that that's somehow own ability? I just I just find it extremely contradictory. I don't think that the administration has considered what the long term impacts of this are going to be. I don't think that the administration is really being thoughtful about what their best approach to a cohesive immigration system is. And and I I think that this is, again, directed essentially and and is is is going in the wrong direction where we're we're not getting the type of talent and, you know, the capable investors around the world into The US that we should be getting.

James Pittman: Now, Divij, you're you're a practicing immigration attorney. I'm a former immigration attorney. Do you think for the for the EB two exceptional ability, I mean, you think there's a market for for that for the Trump Gold Card in that context? I mean, is that even something which you're gonna are you really gonna have employers who are willing to pay $2,000,000 basically to bypass perm bypass perm? Does that does that sound like there's market for that?

Divij Kishore: I can't think of too many individuals that would qualify for that kind of of a program within their companies unless they were the founder of that company. But if I I mean, if you're gonna put it in that context, why would the founder of a company go through all that trouble rather than I'm assuming if the company has got enough capital to have $2,000,000, they could easily succeed in an extraordinary ability petition for themselves or a multinational manager petition for themselves, assuming this is a company that's been incorporated outside The US and is now setting up operations in The US for the first time. It might take a little bit longer, but it's essentially capital less less imposing on your capital requirements, and you actually have that capital available for other things in the future. All the individuals that I've spoken to of late since this gold card program has been within the past week, basically, not one of them has seriously considered going down that route, whether they have the capital for it or not. Because, again, an individual who is considering investing a million dollars in The US market is not doing it just for the green card. At the end of the day, sure. The green card is the primary benefit that they're going after, but they want a direct pathway to to citizenship ultimately. And I think that the only subset of individuals that might qualify this are a very small number of individuals who may be families that want to get green cards for their children or gold cards in this context and and want their children to have the opportunities of studying and working in The US in the long term. Don't want them to have to worry about the h one b program with all the uncertainties that come with it or or some other similar sort of non immigrant visa and the regular pathway to a green card through employment in The US. If that's the primary goal, then I can I can see why the gold card would be a valuable route for them? But you see, at the end of that thought process, where I end up is that there is a group of people who get the gold card in The US who are in gold card status because of what their families did or what their, you know, what their businesses have done that may not be directly correlated to their their contribution to it. We are somehow yeah. And and so we're somehow deprioritizing high skilled, highly qualified investors, professionals, and prioritizing instead a bunch of, you know, nepotism?

James Pittman: Yeah. I mean, it's it's interesting because with the true immigration by investment, I mean, there are countries who have just programs of immigration if you make a donation to their sovereign wealth fund or something like that. There's various countries like that. But this is interesting because this is the goal card original proposal of the $5,000,000 was intended to be what I had just said basically, Anyone who could afford the price tag would basically be given the green card status and a fast track to citizenship. This now tying it to the EB1 and the EB2 really ties it into an employment based framework. So you can't even really use this for, like, let's say you're wanting to send your, you know, middle school child to The US to come and live and go all through school here and stay with relatives and and go on. You can't even do that because you have to have some sort of a pretext that it's being done in an employment context.

Divij Kishore: The question becomes to what extent is the administration going to require that? Or even if they do require it, to what extent are they going to enforce it? Because let's keep in mind that currently, the EB five regional center program is due to expire in September 2027. Any petitions that are filed after the 09/30/2026 will not be grandfathered into the program, meaning that any petition filed after that date, if the program is not renewed for any reason, essentially goes into limbo. So are we currently headed? And, by the way, the investment amount for the EB five category is meant to be looked at and perhaps increased on the 01/01/2027 to account for inflation. So so we are looking at in the relatively close by future near future, we are looking at potential changes that are going to happen. And I'm a little bit concerned about what direction we're going in here. Is the administration that confident that the EB-five program will not survive and and will not be renewed? Is are we setting ourselves up for a for a place where the gold card is the only route left? And what does that do to our current ecosystem of, you know, regional centers and EB-five businesses and investors who are on their way to the EB-five right now.

James Pittman: So what I was about to ask. I mean, do we have any indication or evidence yet whether is this intended to replace the EB-five or for now it's going to run-in parallel with the EB-five and people can still apply for EB-5s in the way they have been applying for? That's one question I have. The other question being the EB5 category gets a lot of applicants, let's say from China and a fair number from India and so on. Are the people who are utilizing this 1,000,002 million dollar version of the Trump Gold Card, are they going to be charged to the EB one I imagine they have to be charged to the EB one, EB two visa allotments for, let's say, those countries, for India, China, whatever the country whatever chargeability area it is, and not to the EB five category. And is there any indication that in the announcements to date that EB-five will cease to exist? You're talking about the the the expiration when the reauthorization dates come up. But as of right now, nothing happens to EB five.

Divij Kishore: That's correct. So to answer your first question, based on what I'm seeing so far, both programs are intended to and will continue to run parallel to each other. And with that being said, I will say, I mean, I'm yet to meet an investor who's going to say that I'm going to give a million dollars of my money away rather than invest it, even if it means I see a lower interest rate as compared to what I would see otherwise if I invested it elsewhere. I'd be very interested to meet individuals who think the latter because or or who think the former because I I would want to know what drives that decision making just out of sheer curiosity. To answer your second question, yes. Based on what's in the proclamation, I think it's really clear that these visas will need to be charged to the EB two and the EB one categories. Now which will be charged to which, I think, still needs to be clarified to some extent. But, obviously, the immediate challenge that runs that that one runs into is that the vast majority of these investors are coming from India and China currently because that is also demographically where the highest concentration of millionaires in the world is right now, with the exception of The US, of course. So what exactly are we looking at in terms of the success rates of these investments is literally anybody's guess. And as we saw in the EB-five context, that there can be carve outs for priority EB-5s, you know, people who are investing in projects in rural areas or TEAs, targeted employment areas, or infrastructure projects, they're not subject to the overall limit for that category. And therefore, even when they're born in India or China, they're able to get the green the EB-five green card a little bit quicker. That similar provision does not appear to have been something that is thought of here. And should such a carve out need to be made, I think that the EB five program and the reform and integrity act make it apparent that there is precedent for that needing to be legislative action that cannot be administrative action. And in any case, even this administrative action, I don't think will survive challenge. Again, my question there would be who would have the locus to challenge this, and what would be their grounds to challenge it? And I could think of a few different reasons to go about doing it. But, again, I I think that I would want to be really, really conservative here, particularly in terms of how to go about making that that challenge. Another point that I want to make about the gold card program is and by the way, that site that you were talking about is trumpcard.gov, which is getting your name down on the list for the platinum card program, which is, again, you know, that's that's so bad real reality TV that I I just I I cringe thinking about it.

James Pittman: It is cringe. It's cringe. It's cringe worthy. Absolutely.

Divij Kishore: And and if if that's the direction that we're heading in and there is so much confusion and just absolute chaos in the market right now, I don't see investors making decisions that would that would weigh heavily in the direction of the gold card or the platinum card. I think any reasonable investor is going to look at it and say, I'm going to want this to get tested out a little bit before I put money into it. And I think that the timing of the h one b proclamation, the $100,000 rule that we were just talking about in the second segment of this discussion, And the timing of the gold card proclamation is a little interesting, to say the least, because let's be honest, had the h one b proclamation not come out, we would be screaming from the rooftops to say, how did you start this in February 2025, saying that this would be a rule that would be operational in two weeks and come back in September seven months later with a rule that shows a 80% discount when you were claiming somewhere in March or May that you already had some 100,000 people who were willing to buy it or had already bought it. I I just I do not understand what this administration is thinking and doing, and I think that it's not helping anybody.

James Pittman: And and and one thing that really concerns me is that, I mean, you and I are specialists in this area, and it's it's daily sort of chore to just keep up with I mean, the public and investors at large, I'm sure cannot possibly fathom all of the details that are missing from these proposals. People just have no idea how much is being left out and unsaid and the number of complications that can arise if people were to try to go down these experimental, shall we say, pathways. But let me ask you this. Have they even mentioned whether dependents would be included in your case if you were to get in use the Trump Gold Card and pay the $1,000,000 and would does that cover your dependents as well, or they each have to pay a million? Well Or they didn't get that far yet?

Divij Kishore: Yeah. To be honest, I don't think they've gotten to that point yet of clarifying that. However, based on the fact that they want the gold card to be charged to the EB one and the EB two categories, I'd say for anyone to say, no, you have to put in a million dollars per person is kind of ridiculous. If if I'm in the national interest because I put a million dollars into The US market or if I'm extraordinary because I put a million dollars into and paid that as a gift to the US Department of Commerce, great. Then, I mean, if I'm charged to the EB one category, then you have to give my children and my spouse a green card as well or a gold card or whatever version of that looks like.

James Pittman: That's that's the common sense reading of it, obviously. This this idea, though, I think the courts are gonna have a field day with this idea that you're basically saying you're basically saying that you're supposed to qualify for this category because of extraordinary ability or because you're working in the national interest. Well, forget standards of proof for that. The fact that you somehow found a way to come up with million dollars or $2,000,000, well, that's just that's just substitutes for any sort of proof that you would need to make that you actually qualify under this

Divij Kishore: credit happens, for example, to matter of or in that context, God alone knows. And let's be let's be honest. I mean, what happens if someone gives a million dollars of their money to the Department of Commerce and then USCIS says, no. We did your security checks. We're not going to grant you the the the

James Pittman: It's an unrestricted gift.

Divij Kishore: Exactly. Do you get your money back? Are you talking about a refund? Is the But done. You gonna hold it in escrow pending adjudication? No. They're not. So, I mean, what exactly is your risk appetite, and what is your risk profile here? I will say that I've had a lot of clients who are from certain countries and demographics where they are you know, they're they're subjected to a very high degree of scrutiny. And I'm talking about people who are from Iran and things like that. Right? And they may not get the green card even when they're they may not even get a visitor visa even though they have there's no real reason for them to be refused apart from the fact that they're from that country. And the the particular sociopolitical context in that country is very unique and difficult to understand because, on the one hand, you're mandatorily required to serve in the defense services, yet one of their arms of the defense services is a designated terrorist organization here in The US. So are you going to say that someone who disqualifies for that reason but is able to come up with a with a million dollars is going to be able to get a green card to The US or gold card to The US just because they came up with the money? Because I can give you examples of individuals, and that would be exciting for those individuals, to be honest. And I don't mean this in a bad way at all because they are accomplished individuals. They've never done anything that would be overtly viewed as supporting terrorist activities, except they were obligated to serve in the defense service. And they've done well for themselves to the point that they cannot go back to their home country because they would be considered traitors there. But now are you considering are you considering giving them gold cards just because they have the money? I I don't think we want to do that. And I'm I'm know, generally, if I see my client who I know so much about having difficulty get getting any type of visa to The US because of that blip in their history and them in spite of the fact that they essentially escaped that service, that gives me a degree of comfort knowing that, you know, The US is going about consider you know, doing this degree of background testing and if background checks. And if they are not satisfied and if the Department of State is not satisfied, they just say, sorry. You don't get the ability to travel to The US. That gives me some confidence. Is the gold card somehow going to dilute that process? And are we going to end up in a situation are we going to wait for there to be a situation where this process results in, you know, a bad outcome for somebody before we say, oh, we need to look at this and and reconsider it?

James Pittman: Yeah. My my. So many questions. So many questions. I I'm particularly that was a good point, Divij. Very good point. And I'm also particularly intrigued by the notion of this amount as an unrestricted gift and what that language actually means. It's not a fee. Right? You're not actually the government doesn't have a this money is not being charged by virtue of having gone through a process where they established the amount and said that this is a fee for something. This is supposed to be an unrestricted gift. What does that mean? What will happen, as you say, if people need to back out of the process after they've made their unrestricted gift? Well, so many questions, and we just have to wait and see how it evolves. But let me ask you this practical question, which is you have a high net worth client who comes to you right now looking at options for The United States. Is is this even on the table for you as something you discuss with them?

Divij Kishore: I think it's my responsibility to to inform them about the fact that this is an option, but that also means that it is my responsibility to inform them of the risks of this as an option. So far, I see no reason, in my professional opinion, purely in the context of immigration law. I see no reason for someone to go gold card route versus EB-five. I think EB-five is the clear winner. And you get your money back after some years. I I don't see a reason to to even test the gold card process. My opinion might change based on the fact that more and new information becomes available essentially every day. But I don't know if this program will survive this administration, assuming it survives whatever legal challenges are coming down the pipeline, which I'm sure there are a few. I don't know if this program is is going to be really scrutinized and audited because the proclamation does make provision for a separate fund where these gold card investments will be held and then utilized. Who is overseeing that fund? Who's spending that money? Where where is that money being, you know, being infused? Is it being applied to The US economy? My opinion on this has been consistent. The EB five program benefits The US economy in general. It creates jobs. It creates infrastructure. It creates projects. It's beneficial for everybody, rural areas, TEAs. When The US benefits, the whole population of this country benefits, including the investor who is essentially growing their net worth by making an investment. This program is, I think, much more two dimensional than that. It's a pay me some money and live in my country program. I don't see that as a value add to our economy, to the fabric of our society. I don't see why we would want those people here.

James Pittman: Yeah. Well put, Divij. Well put. That is an accurate summation that I would agree with, frankly. Well, I'm afraid we're gonna have to leave it there. I'm sure we'll be back on this topic in the future. So thanks. That's it for today's conversation, and a huge thanks to Divij Kishore for returning to Immigration Uncovered and sharing his insights on some of the most pressing and controversial changes facing our field. And today if if today's episode gave you something to think about, consider subscribing, sharing it with a colleague, or leaving us a quick review. Smash that like button. It helps others define the show and join the conversation. And as always, Immigration Uncovered is brought to you by the team at 8AM Docketwise. Docketwise is the top ranked immigration software built to help you streamline your practice, stay compliant, and deliver outstanding service without burning out. Thank you for listening, we'll see you next time.

Divij Kishore: Thank you.