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By Dan Gooding and Gabe Whisnant
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A government watchdog group filed a lawsuit Monday challenging the Trump administration’s refusal to release documents related to its Gold Card visa program, which allows foreign nationals to obtain U.S. residency in exchange for a $1 million payment.
In a complaint filed in the U.S. District of Columbia, Democracy Defenders Fund said that legal permanent residency in the U.S. should not be reserved for the rich and accused the Trump administration of sending mixed messages about the gold card.
“Immigrant visas are not million-dollar Mar-a-Lago memberships,” Kevin Bell, co-founder and partner at Free Information Group, said in a press release. “For months President Trump and Secretary Lutnick shifted their story about which foreign interests would benefit and who would suffer the cost. This litigation will reveal the true story. People may lie, but records don’t.”
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The suit, filed alongside law firms Colombo & Hurd and Free Information Group, is against the Departments of Commerce, Homeland Security (DHS) and State, as well as U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).
Newsweek reached out to DHS, the Department of Commerce, and the Department of State for comment via email Monday afternoon.
While the lawsuit does not seek to scrap the gold card, it does call for greater transparency from the Trump administration on its creation. The government has also faced multiple lawsuits around its immigration policies over the past year, including challenges to changes to the H-1B work-based visa and the ending of legal status for immigrants covered by Temporary Protected Status.
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What Does the Lawsuit Say?
The filing alleges the agencies failed to comply with Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests seeking records on how the program was developed and implemented.
According to the groups, the Gold Card program allows affluent applicants to bypass traditional employment- and merit-based visa pathways, potentially displacing other qualified candidates. The plaintiffs said they submitted FOIA requests earlier this year but did not receive the records they sought.
In court filings, the organizations argue that the public has a right to understand how the program operates and whether it affects existing immigration systems. They are asking a federal judge to order the agencies to produce the requested documents.
“Residency in the United States should not be reserved for the rich,” Sarah Wilson, partner and federal litigation practice leader at Colombo & Hurd, said in a press release. "The public deserves to know whether the government is pushing aside qualified applicants in favor of a program that puts wealth ahead of merit."
Democracy Defenders Fund and Colombo & Hurd previously filed a separate legal challenge seeking to block the Gold Card program, arguing it unlawfully prioritizes wealth over merit. The administration has defended the initiative as a way to attract investment to the United States.
What Is the Gold Card?
Trump and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick announced the Gold Card in February 2025, as one of the first changes to the legal immigration system of his second term.
At the time, Trump and Lutnick said it would be a way to attract investors to the U.S., guaranteeing them green card status and a pathway to citizenship. The idea was to charge $5 million for the visa, which would replace the long-standing EB-5 investor visa.
Details then remained sparse on the visa and how applications would work, although Lutnick made repeated statements in the following months that there had been dozens of applications, despite Congress not having formally created the visa, as is protocol.
In December, the program formally began, with a new website launching for applicants to file through and USCIS creating a new application form for the visa.
Update 4/23/26, 3:26 p.m. ET: This article was updated with additional information.
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