In late April 2026, U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told lawmakers that President Donald Trump's administration had approved only one person for its
In response, social media users on X and Threads claimed the person Lutnick referred to was pop star Nicki Minaj.
Minaj did, in fact, receive a literal golden card from Trump in January after praising the president at an event with him. Minaj's card resembled the official gold card visa as shown on a government website. However, a spokesperson with the Department of Commerce told Snopes in a phone call that Minaj's card was a "memento," which aligns with previous reports about the gift.
In other words, the card Minaj received was not actually a legitimate immigration document, per the Commerce spokesperson.
However, the spokesperson declined to share who the actual gold card recipient cited by Lutnick was, citing "federal law." Furthermore, Minaj's team and the White House did not immediately respond to requests for more information.
Given that we cannot definitively prove that Minaj did not apply for the official gold card program, we have not rated this claim.
Here's everything else we know:
Minaj's immigration status
In a Jan. 28, 2026, X post, Minaj said she got a "Gold Trump card free of charge" and that she was "finalizing that citizenship paperwork as we speak."
However, The New York Times reported in January that, according to a Department of Homeland Security official, Minaj has been a legal resident in the United States for more than two decades, meaning she likely would not need to apply for a gold card. In response to a request to confirm the Times' reporting, DHS referred all questions to the Department of Commerce.
In 2018, Minaj said on Facebook that she "came to this country as an illegal immigrant @ 5 years old." She is originally from Trinidad and Tobago.
Lutnick: Only one 'Gold Card' recipient
Lutnick said the government had approved only one gold card recipient so far during an April 23 congressional hearing in response to a question about the program from Rep. Grace Meng, D-N.Y.
Here's Lutnick's full answer to Meng's question, available in a video of his testimony on CSPAN's website, starting at 36:07 (emphasis ours):
MENG: As you know, people who are able to pay at least $1 million into Commerce's gift account are eligible for permanent legal residence and potentially citizenship. I wanted to ask how many of these applications have been approved and how many gifts have been received by Commerce?
LUTNICK: The process was recently resolved with DHS, who runs the program. And they do a $15,000 — the most serious vetting and analysis of any potential applicant in the history of government. Usually, it was $600 — these pay 15,000 for an extraordinary vet.
So they have approved recently, one person, and there are hundreds in the queue that they are going through the process. But this is a new program, and they just set it up, and they wanted to make sure they did it perfectly. And so we've worked through that. But it's a DHS program done with a rigorous, rigorous vetting.
The $15,000 DHS processing fee Lutnick referred to is paid by the applicant on top of the $1 million contribution to Commerce, according to the official website for the Trump Gold Card.
A user-created clip of the specific relevant exchange is also available on CSPAN's
The Associated Press reported that after the program launched in December 2025, Lutnick previously claimed the government had sold "$1.3 billion worth" of gold cards in just a few days.