What is singular though is President Trump’s breathtaking mercantilism over something that is fundamental to questions of rights, identity, and human capital. For starters, the Gold Card, he believes, will attract the “wealthy” and “successful” to the US; the president is confident that companies can pay to attract and retain the best talent from countries like India, China, and elsewhere. Considering the kind of money needed for a Gold Card, this premise will be severely tested. The high bar would also mean that only the super-wealthy are likely to encash this option though Trump’s promise of easing personal taxation for the wealthy may transform the Gold Card into an attractive instrument. Most Indians, however, are likely to be concerned more about tweaks in the H1-B visa programme and the birthright citizenship provision, currently under challenge in court.

Against the backdrop of the administration’s accelerated retreat from a favourable consideration of immigrant rights — exemplified by the ruthless crackdown on illegal immigrants — the new citizenship-for-cash programme underscores a radical reversal of America’s citizenship and immigration policies. Simply put, the US, henceforth, won’t invest in immigrants; immigrants must invest in the US.

To be sure, there is an upsurge in such estrangement from immigrant protections and conventions elsewhere, too, with more nations in the developed world witnessing anti-immigrant sentiment. But how do the Gold Card and recent deportations speak to the spirit of Emma Lazarus’s The New Colossus? Etched on a plaque on the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty, the lines “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free ... your homeless...” embodied the founding principles of the US. Trump seems to have no qualms about rewriting these.