Altura Ventures has devised the ultimate free-market solution leveraging America’s greatest asset – the privilege to be and work here – to address her two most intractable problems: the $34-trillion national debt and illegal immigration.
On November 7, 2023, Scott Adams shared Lorenzen's plan for foreigners to purchase US citizenships for $1,000,000 each and then have the US use these funds to pay off the national debt. Fortunately, Scott's audience included many members of the Trump admininistration and this created enough of a buzz to convince the Trump administration of the benefits of the Pay-to-Stay Plan.
The Pay-to-Stay Plan offers a multifaceted solution, aiming to reform the immigration system, reduce national debt, and support the deportation of the criminals and terrorists while transitioning those with pure intentions into Day Pass workers who pay for the privilege to be here. By creating structured, economically viable pathways for undocumented immigrants and qualified foreign nationals this plan presents a transformative approach to solving some of America’s most pressing challenges.
This chart below and the subsequent sections below describing Gold, Silver, Bronze, and Green Cards explain how the Pay-to-Stay Plan will generate immediate revenue, support/fund the deportation of “bad guys” and secure long-term benefits for both immigrants and citizens.
This option targets wealthy, non-corrupt, non-US residentswho seeking a fast path U.S. citizenship. The Trump Administration is launchingthis program and the plan is to charge $5 million, paid in advance byindividuals after they have been fully vetted. . It is intended to augment orreplace the current EB5 visa system which is only available to a limited numberof immigrants and has significant hurdles related to starting brand newcompanies in the US.
This option targets highly qualified, middle to upper class, and/or high-earning immigrants seeking U.S. citizenship. Structured as a “Citizenship Mortgage,” it addresses those who don’t win the Green Card lottery.
Process:
1. Green Card Lottery Losers Can Apply for Silver Cards:
• Out of 10+ million annual applicants for Green Cards, only 50,000 applicants win free Green Cards to start their path to citizenship. The remainder who didn’t win will be able to apply for Silver Cards which require payments of $1 million.
• This model assumes 3.5 million potential recipients of Silver Card status each year over the next 10 years which each Silver Card recipient would have at least a 30-year loan of $1,000,000 each (i.e., $3,000 per month mortgage payments). In 10 years, this generates over $35 trillion dollars to pay off the national debt.
2. Financial and Security Vetting for Participants:
• Applicants must prove financial solvency through pre-approved loans, bank accounts with the first year’s payment, employer commitments, or sponsors.
• All of these requirements will dissuade the criminals and terrorists from applying because it would put them in a category that will be easier to track down.
3. Eligibility and Requirements:
• All Green Card requirements apply, allowing Silver Card holders to work, live, and transition to full U.S. citizenship under standard immigration processes.
Benefits:
• Creates a structured, revenue-generating system that brings in qualified individuals committed to investing in U.S. society.
• New immigrants contribute taxes, social security, and economic productivity, strengthening national financial health.
Impementation and Key Responsibilities:
• Apply for a Silver Card, meet financial requirements, and secure necessary documentation.
• Have a job, pay taxes, and follow the naturalization process for eventual U.S. citizenship.
This component provides undocumented immigrants with a pathway to legally remain in the U.S. through a daily fee mechanism, alongside structural support via U.S. bank accounts and co-signer agreements.
With 21 million illegal immigrants purchasing Day Passes the revenue will grow from $229 billion to $1.1 trillion per year. These funds can be used to attract only immigrants with good intentions who will volunteer to show up and be closely vetted, fund deportation efforts, and pay interest on the debt.
Key Steps:
1. Day Pass Accounts:
• Each participant opens a U.S. bank account to manage Day Pass payments.
• The account requires 3 to 10 co-signers who assume partial responsibility if the account falls below the $1,000 minimum monthly balance.
2. Daily Payments:
• A daily fee (starting at $30, amounting to $1,000 monthly) is withdrawn and deposited into the U.S. Treasury’s Debt Repayment Account.
• The daily fee could be paid in whole or in part by the co-signers. So, the immigrant might pay $5 per day and five co-signers might each pay $5 per day which would add up to the required minimum payment of $30 per day.
• If the $1,000 monthly balance isn’t replenished within 30 days of depletion, deportation procedures can commence.
3. Bank Account Usage:
• Participants can use these accounts for direct deposits, transfers, and payments, enabling full financial integration within the U.S. system.
• The Day Pass workers’ usage of the debit card usage will provide a mechanism for deducting amounts for the usage of US benefits (e.g., emergency room visits, temporary housing, etc.)
• The usage of the debit card via a phone they register with it will also provide a way to track the movements of the Day Pass workers in case there are reports of criminal behavior on their parts.
Benefits:
• Regular Day Pass fees generate revenue, helping to address the national debt.
• This setup encourages immigrants to take legal steps toward stability, while co-signers validate their accountability.Implementation and Key
Responsibilities:
• Open a U.S. bank account and maintain a minimum balance with co-signer support.
• Make daily payments and adhere to all account requirements.
• Use legal employment opportunities to maintain financial stability.
• Use the ClearMe and Life360 apps on their phone to support real time tracking at all times.
This is the existing Green Card system for which approximately 1 million recipients begin their 5 year path to citizenship. There are no charges for this type of card (other than lawyer fees for processing the application) but there are limits on the number issued on per-country basis per year. In addition, the following requirements exist:
• Physical presence: You must have lived in the U.S. for at least 30 months out of the five years before applying for citizenship. If you are married to a U.S. citizen, you only need to have lived in the U.S. for at least 18 months.
• Good moral character: You must demonstrate that your character meets the standards of average citizens in your community.
• English and civics test: You must pass a test that includes written and spoken questions about civics in English.
• Oath of allegiance: You must attend the Oath of Allegiance ceremony.
• Biometrics appointment: You must attend a biometrics appointment.
From the Issues and Insights article by Lee Lorenzen on 3/2/2025
Shared by Real Clear Markets article on 3/4/2025
On February 25, 2025, Donald Trump announced the top tier of the Pay-to-Stay Plan. With his introductoin of $5-million “Gold Cards,” he had once again “shaken the box,” as former cartoonist turned conservative podcaster Scott Adams would put it – and reframed the immigration debate by assigning a value to our greatest asset, the privilege of U.S. citizenship and access to the limitless opportunities here.
But to realize the full, breathtaking potential of his plan – to resolve our two most intractable challenges, illegal immigration and our $37-trillion national debt in one fell swoop – the president needs to consider two “brand extensions:” he needs to go “Silver” and “Bronze.”
The Gold Card concept has two “bugs:” optics and volume. Offering super-immigration rights only to the ultra-rich or through large corporations is already coming under attack. Moreover, i’s contrary to MAGA’s image as a middle-class movement and gives credibility to the progressives’ constant harangue that President Trump is only interested in serving himself and the multimillionaire/billionaire cohort.
Moreover, the math falls short on a couple of fronts. The first: a limited pool of eligible and interested applicants. As of 2020, fewer than 3 million people in the entire world boasted net worths north of $10 million, and most of those are either already in the U.S., in China, a somewhat dubious source of immigrants, or living comfortable lives in the developed world. And not many more individuals would generate sufficient revenues for a corporate sponsor to justify an investment of $5 million.
Second, even with a larger pool, the revenue stream to the government from Gold Cards won’t be large enough to put the kind of dent into the debt the president is seeking. Trump has enthused, “If we sell a million, that’s $5 trillion.” Five trillion dollars, to channel Everett Dirksen, is real money. But again, hitting that target would require an enormous share of the world’s wealthiest to come here, and even then only cover a fraction of the debt.
But just like moving from the upscale to the middle and ultimately to the mass market can exponentially increase scale in a business, introducing tiered “brand extensions” of the Gold Card would not only dramatically increase its revenue potential to the point of retiring the nation’s debt but also make the initiative more equitable, attract a larger pool of talent and convert the strain on resources from illegal immigration into an ongoing revenue stream.
The two proposed additional tiers which are part of The Pay-to-Stay Plan fit between the Gold and Green Cards and are branded:
• Silver Cards priced at $1 million payable over 30-50 years, financed with Citizenship Mortgages. The 10+ million applicants who lose the green card lottery each year could obtain the cards and start on a path to citizenship in exchange for mortgages payable over 30-50 years, financed with low-interest bank loans.
• Bronze Cards attainable for a fee of $30/day (potentially paid by up to five US citizen or corporate sponsors at $5 per day plus $5 from the immigrant) would enable illegal immigrants and legal guest workers to stay in or legally enter the U.S. and work without gaining permanent residency, although recipients would be free to enter the Green Card lottery. The Cards, and permission to work, would remain valid as long as the fees continue to be paid or a holder “wins” the green card lottery or waits in line for years in hopes of getting one of the 1 million green cards made available each year.
And those “brand extensions’” deliver appreciable benefits:
• Transform the cost sink (and social disruption) of illegal immigration – estimated at $150 billion annually for the federal government alone – into a revenue center generating sufficient revenues to pay off the entire national debt over 11 years.
• Shift the profile of immigrants from criminals, terrorists and gang members plus non-working asylum seekers to:
-- for the Bronze Card, immigrants with good intentions who will volunteer to show up and be closely vetted and
-- for “Silver Cards,” the best and brightest the world has to offer, willing to invest in themselves – with the responsibility to vet them.
• Fund increased border security and deportation efforts for immigrants here illegally and not willing or able to pay for the Bronze Cards or find employer or sponsors. Finding the criminals will also be easier because they are very unlikely to show up for the extensive vetting (e.g., fingerprints, photos, background checks, phone monitoring, periodic phone-based check-ins, etc.) that those with pure and pro-American intentions will find quite reasonable.
• Allow US Customs and Immigration to focus on resecuring the border, thereby reducing fentanyl and human trafficking and protecting our national security and re-instill respect for the rule of law.
• And, by the way, addressing labor shortages that are not just looming nationwide but actually here with the flow of illegals already slowing. While it may seem a bit stereotypical to mention, I’ve received firsthand reports of produce fields being plowed under here in the Salinas Valley of Monterey County, California, the “Salad Bowl to the World,” and other industries could be affected as well. Fixing this quickly will help forestall any inflation for workforce disruption.
Besides solving the optics and volume problems with the Gold Cards – and tackling both our indebtedness and border security issues – there’s one additional plus to the addition of the two tiers. Its greater equity, humane treatment of participants and potential to create opportunity for those who want to work here might well attract rare bipartisan support from Democrats and progressives who reflexively dismiss even broadly popular, common-sense proposals from Trump.
An expanded, multi-brand, multi-tiered initiative that could tackle our two biggest national challenges – and promote unity at a time of untold division? That would be striking pure political gold.
On July 17, 2011, Lorenzen wrote a speech in which he shared his ideas for a Full-Employment Initiative (FEI). He "deep-faked" these words into Ronald Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiatve (SDI) Oval Office addresss as a type of time captsule that Reagan had created in 1988 and had suggested be opened in 2011. In that video, Reagan called on lenders to offer Citizenship Mortgages that would allow immigrants to pay for the right to stay in the US and thereby help pay down the debt. Here is a part of what he said:
Or, perhaps you can loan money to the 15 million illegal aliens who would be willing to purchase their rights to become American citizens for $100,000 if only someone were able to give them a 30 year low interest loan that could be repaid with wage garnishments from their hard work and which was secured by their freedom from deportation and the promise of full amnesty upon repayment?
Or, perhaps you can convince 15 million of the best and brightest foreigners that you’re employing elsewhere in the world to each pay $100,000 to purchase their Golden Ticket to America?
We want to entice the foreign nationals who are computer scientists, doctors, nurses, employers and entrepreneurs who can live anywhere they like but who choose to come to America because it is the best place to ensure that their children are able to blaze their own trails of success in any field they choose and who will have the chance to retain the money that their parents have earned for them. There is clearly room in American for 15 million new startup specialists who either already have the personal wealth to pay the $100,000 for their Golden Ticket or who will earn it by hiring at least 10 unemployed Americans during their first year here.
On March 3, 2014, Lorenzen sent to a number of VCs e-mails describing the next iteration of his Citizen Mortgages concept for profiting from immigration but he never heard back from them -- perhaps because he named this new pathway to citizenship "Uncle Sam's Golden Ticket" in honor of Willy Wonka:
On November 7, 2023, Lorenzen sent the idea to Scott Adams who saw the value of sharing the next evolution of Lorenzen's idea for Citizenship Mortgages. Adams did so because he is known for accurately predicting the future and for floating apparently "dumb ideas" that can be shaped into better ones and then tested on a small scale before rolling them out nationwide:
On December 3, 2024, Lorenzen began e-mailing friends who had access to the Trump Administration a link to The Pay-to-Stay Plan which referred to the Gold Card as a high price version of a Green Card and linking these to the US Citizenship Mortgages (i.e., Silver Cards) and Day Passes (i.e., Bronze Cards) which were his original concepts from many years earlier.
This program would allow U.S. citizens aged 50 and older to auction their citizenship to qualified, interested immigrants. It is designed to be implemented after the U.S. has successfully sold enough citizenships under the Gold and Silver Card programs to eliminate the national debt. The goal of this initiative is to provide retirees with more comfortable retirements than they would have if they remained in the U.S., relying solely on Social Security and Medicare benefits.
Process:
1. Auction System for U.S. Citizens:
• U.S. citizens aged 50 and older who no longer wish to reside in the U.S.—such as retirees or those already living abroad—can sell their citizenship for a market-determined price. In exchange, they must agree to permanently expatriate (with exceptions for short-term visits to family and friends).
• The system will function as a traditional online auction platform, where sellers set a "buy-it-now" price for their U.S. citizenship. Buyers can either purchase instantly at the listed price or place competing bids, with the seller accepting the highest offer above their reserve price.
2. Market Price per U.S. Citizenship:
• The likely price for a U.S. Citizenship in the Pay-to-Stay marketplace will be between $250,000 and $750,000.
• One factor pushing the price down is that there will likely be many U.S. citizens over 50 who will want to receive both a lump-sum payment for their citizenship plus their incremental Social Security and Medicare benefits which are still paid out by the US government over time.
• One factor pushing the price up is the fact that there are very large numbers of foreigners who would enjoy the benefits of being in the US.
3. Regulated Exchange:
• A transparent platform will ensure fair market pricing and compliance, turning voluntary expatriation into a significant revenue stream for sellers while providing buyers with new pathways for legal immigration.
• The U.S. government will take a 10% commission on all transactions and reserves the right to deny any sale based on background checks, security concerns, or other regulatory factors.
• The destination country must approve of the transaction and allow the U.S. citizen to live there as a permanent resident or naturalized citizen.
Benefits:
• Financial Benefits for U.S. Retirees: Retirees gain a substantial lump-sum payment, allowing them to relocate to countries with a lower cost of living and affordable healthcare.
• New Immigration Pathway: Provides qualified immigrants with an alternative route to U.S. citizenship.
• Economic Growth & Tax Revenue: Infuses the economy with new working immigrants who will pay taxes and contribute to the U.S. workforce for years to come.
Implementation and Key Responsibilities
For U.S. Citizens (Citizenship Marketplace):
• Participate in the auction system, acknowledging the permanent expatriation commitment.
• Receive financial compensation while enabling legal immigration for foreigners seeking a faster path to U.S. citizenship.
Lee Lorenzen is a serial entrepreneur who sold his first software company while still in college and then went on to work at Xerox and Digital Research on some of the first graphical user interfaces for the personal computer. For over 40 years, Lee has founded and/or funded 25+ startups with multiple liquidity events including:
As shown in the cartoon below, most people have no expertise in spotting the "crazy ones" who waste their time "sitting around inventing" and little appreciation for the initial versions of their creations. For these reasons, they are surprised when subsequent versions of these products with true paradigm-shifting powers are released into the world and cause what had been tiny ripples of change to swell into wealth-creating tsunamis that can exceed $100 billion.
Lee is known for founding companies based on his predictions about the ability of new technologies and/or business models to change the world.
One example of this is evidenced by his invention in 1997 of the multi-vendor, virtual inventory, one-cart shopping system (US 7,197,475). This invention enables 3rd party marketplace experiences such as the one that now powers over 50% of Amazon's GMV and was the reason why Bill Gates (Forbes #1) was a seed round investor in SHOP.COM in 1997 and Jeff Bezos (Forbes #2) invested 837,520 shares of Amazon stock for 10% of SHOP.COM in 2001.
While Lee has a number of inventions to his credit, he is still looking for someone who has invented a time machine because he needs it to go back to the morning of Sep. 30, 2001 and tell his former self to hold onto these Amazon shares, or at least margin them instead of selling them later that day, because they now have a value of $2.01 BILLION. Sigh…
Prior to his work at SHOP.COM, Lee created the Lone Star graphical user interface on a PC platform while at Xerox in 1982. This proof-of-concept pre-dated Apple's Macintosh and Microsoft's Windows by more than 2 years. When Xerox chose not to develop the Lone Star user interface into a product, Lee joined Digital Research (DRI) in 1983 and went on to create the GEM OS and GEM Desktop in 1984 which proved to the world the viability of Xerox's pioneering user interface work on the IBM PC platform.
Interestingly, Steve Jobs was so worried about Xerox's user interface being deployed on a PC platform that he personally threatened Bill Gates regarding Windows being too "Mac-like." Bill responded by suggesting that Steve first threaten to sue DRI because Lorenzen's GEM Desktop was closer to the Mac user interface than Windows was. Steve did so and DRI's inability to fight Apple's lawyers led to Lorenzen leaving DRI to start a desktop publishing company called Ventura Software. Both Apple and Microsoft subsequently went on to build graphical user interface businesses on the PC and Mac platforms that each exceeded $100 billion in market value.
At Ventura Software, Lorenzen was the software architect and primary developer of the bulk of Ventura Publisher on the GEM and Windows platforms creating such major desktop publishing innovations as advanced style sheets, fast H&J, multi-frame text flowing, database publishing hooks and editable tables. This period from 1986 to 1990 was during the early days of the desktop publishing industry (i.e., another industry that Lee helped pioneer) which grew to over $100 billion in market value and included companies such as Adobe, Aldus, Apple, Microsoft, FrameMaker, Xerox, Seybold and Quark. Lorenzen was recognized along with selected leaders of these companies as Desktop Publishing Pioneers by the Computer History Museum in 2017.
During its entire history, Ventura Software had only 5 employees and Bill Gates was so impressed by Lee's "lean and mean software company" that he sent the following letter to make that point and to request Lee's support of Microsoft in the future -- which is why Lee approached Bill when he wanted a seed round investor for SHOP.COM.
Lee really appreciated the above note from Bill and Bill has been true to his word by not only investing in Lee’s subsequent ventures such as SHOP.COM but also providing a personal reference for Lee as part of a due diligence request by a Silicon Valley VC.
More recently, Lorenzen accurately predicted that Facebook would be worth $100 billion at the time of their IPO. This prediction was made in writing and on video in 2007 and came true five years later just a few days after Facebook's IPO in 2012. Below is the chart from Scott Austin's WSJ article on May 18, 2012 along with a picture of Lee speaking at the first Developer Meeting for the Facebook Platform
The reasons for Lee’s prediction were outlined in detail in an interview with Rodney Rumford at the First Facebook Developers Summit in Palo Alto.
It was at this event that Lee first met Mark Zuckerberg and where the picture above was taken with a one callout showing Lee explaining why he was so confident about Facebook’s future valuation and with another callout showing what Lee imagines Mark’s thoughts might have been at the time.
As you can see in this video of Lorenzen's $100 billion prediction at the Graphing Social Patterns conference, Lorenzen had to defend his views while being called "drunk" and "delusional" and "on crack" and a "security threat" by fellow panelists that included Michael Arrington, Jason Calacanis, and Robert Scoble:
"Back on October 11, 2007, I wrote that Lee Lorenzen was nuts. [...] I told Zuckerberg to sell at a $15 billion valuation. [...] But, Zuckerberg and Lorenzen had real vision and I didn’t."Robert Scoble
The most recent example of this OS Lens approach being used by Lorenzen is in his prediction of something he calls the Influence Operating System (Influence OS) and the "Killer App" for it which he believes will be the ShopO Circles cross-border e-commerce app. The Phase 1 version of an Influence OS and App occurred during the Arab Spring in what Lorenzen called the Rock Candy Revolution when a Facebook Page was used to crystallize consensus, coordinate collaborations and change the world.
Like Wael Ghonim's one-off example of an Influence App built on top of a single Facebook page that rallied millions of Egyptians to take their country back in just 18 days, Lorenzen wants to build a multi-use, Influence OS on top of Facebook's Social Graph that numerous app developers can use to efficiently influence a large number of people for good purposes.
Facebook’s Social Graph currently contains information on 2.0 billion people around the globe who are the nodes in the graph and on their combined 300+ billion friend connections which are shown as white lines in the picture below:
Facebook’s market cap is over $500 billion and these revenues are derived almost exclusively from “advertising campaigns” which are delivered in the form of newsfeed posts and other messages that Facebook’s users see as they are using the app to find out what is going on in the world and in their friends’ lives.
Ever since Facebook connected its first 1 billion members into the Social Graph, the big question for smart entrepreneurs, investors and world changers has been:
“Now that Facebook exists at scale, what can we do that we couldn’t do before?”
Lorenzen’s answer to the above question was to create ShopO which solves the problem that while Facebook has provided easy access to information, not everyone has easy or equal access to the products they see others discussing on Facebook. The ShopO Circles app gives consumers everywhere a low-cost solution for acquiring products outside their country. In addition to solving a consumer problem, ShopO solves a problem for merchants and opens up a new opportunity for revenue for Facebook.
Without the ability to buy and ship products across borders, Facebook’s top advertisers in the US don’t spend advertising dollars to reach non-US residents. In fact, the successful introduction of a “global influence graph” on top of Facebook Social Graph would mean billions of new ad revenue to Facebook because these additional 1.8+ billion users outside the US would become attractive prospects as they could now cost-effectively find, pay for and ship these US products to their homes around the world.
On November 11, 2011, Lorenzen originated the idea of combining Facebook’s Social Graph with UPS’ Logistics Graph and this led to a highly successful consulting engagement with UPS. The goal of this engagement was to grow the install base of the UPS MyChoice delivery-redirection service by leveraging Facebook and the various viral growth techniques that such social networks makes possible. As part of this process, Lorenzen conceived of the concept of a Group Delivery System in which packages would be delivered to group leaders who had formed their groups using their Facebook friend connections and who handled the shopping, ordering and delivering of their group members’ packages.
The result of Lorenzen’s innovation was UPS’ receipt of the patent for Group Delivery Systems and Related Methods (US 20140279667 A1) as shown here:
This Group Delivery Systems and Related Methods patent is one of the reasons why WorldShop and UPS entered into a long term Strategic Alliance Agreement in December 2014 and why UPS made their seed round investment of $2.2 million in WorldShop LLC at that time.
Time will tell but Lorenzen believes that the cross-border, personal shopper business model based on groups of buyers gathered via social media will ultimately create one of more companies with over $100 billion in market value.
In case you haven't been counting, that makes 5 new software industries and/or companies with market values over $100 billion for which Lee Lorenzen has either been a pioneer, an early predictor of massive value or a provider of enabling technologies or business models. With that track record in mind, and for all the reasons stated earlier, you can count on his prediction that ShopO will be the next $100 billion company.
With that being said, if you intend to make financial investments based on any of the opinions expressed here, please remember:
Lorenzen's First Law of Fundraising: "Invest only what you can afford to lose completely and if such a loss occurs, still remain friends with Lee." 😄