President Donald Trump speaks as Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick listens alongside a poster of the Trump Gold Card in the Oval Office of the White House, Friday, Sept. 19, 2025, in Washington (AP Photo/Alex Brandon).
The Trump administration violated the law by refusing to hand over “any information” that would shed light on the president”s $1 million “Gold Card Visa Program” and its “impact on the public,” according to a new federal lawsuit in Washington, D.C., against several agencies.
Democracy Defenders Fund and Colombo & Hurd, a Florida law firm, sued the State Department, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the Commerce Department (DOC), and DHS, claiming that each agency “fail[ed] to release documents” of “national significance” that the plaintiffs are entitled to receive under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).
The group, cofounded by former Obama administration “ethics czar” Norm Eisen, said that the public has a right to know just how the agencies have developed and implemented the Gold Card program after President Donald Trump created it by executive order in September.
Already suing over the program itself by calling it a “pay-to-play” scheme that “privileges wealthy immigrants” over scientists, researchers, and academics, the self-described “nonpartisan, non-profit” is now taking the next step to obtain the documents about a program Trump and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said sold “over $1 billion worth” of gold cards.
“On February 11, 2026, Plaintiff DDF filed a subsequent FOIA request with DHS and USCIS seeking information on the development and implementation of the Gold Card Visa Program in order to inform the public about actual and alleged government activity,” the complaint said. “To date, Defendants have not provided any information responsive to Plaintiffs’ requests or cited any statutory exemption justifying the withholding of any responsive information.”
Then the filing turned to the blog post that Lutnick’s agency put up in December, complete with a button to apply for a gold card.
“Our immigration system should put Americans first. That’s exactly why the Trump Gold Card is a major win for our country,” Lutnick declared at the time.
The plaintiffs countered that the Trump administration should be forced to disclose internal documents about the program precisely because the public has been left to rely on only Trump and Lutnick’s assurances.
“Behind closed doors, this administration appears to be trying to turn our immigration system into a bazaar with the privilege of U.S. residency available to the highest bidder. Meanwhile, they are cruelly cracking down on others who are drawn to our shores,” Eisen said in a statement. “The American people deserve to know how this pay-to-play scheme came to be, how the Gold Card applications are processed and how the program adversely impacts qualified applicants whose work in the U.S. would benefit all of us.”
Free Information Group is a public interest law firm also involved in the litigation. Co-founder Kevin Bell stated that “[i]mmigrant visas are not million-dollar Mar-a-Lago memberships.”
“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,” Bell said.
