Key Part Of Us Residency Program For Investors Set To Expire

AP ^ | 30 Jun 2021 | Ben Fox

[blueplum]

WASHINGTON (AP) — A program that has allowed wealthy foreign investors to obtain U.S. residency, and has long been the subject of complaints that it amounts to the wholesale selling of American citizenship, may be coming to a sputtering end.

Congressional authorization for a key part of the immigrant investor program was set to expire Wednesday with dim prospects for renewal ...

Congress created the program to encourage investment from overseas and spur job growth in 1990, when the economy was in recession.

The program required an investment of $1 million or just $500,000 in areas of high poverty and the creation of at least 10 jobs. In exchange, overseas investors got temporary residency along with their immediate family and could apply later for citizenship....

...“Every conceivable scam by every conceivable player is sort of available in this program and I think it well deserves its death,” North said.

[blueplum]

good riddance

[Trinity5]

Yes we prefer our immigrants (legal and illegal) to show up with nothing in their pockets. Much better that way...

[BobL]

Hard to see why people in other countries would even want to move to what is now a Third World country.

[Yo-Yo]

This law is why you see convenience stores and motels run by Indian families.

An Indian family buys a 7-Eleven or Motel 6 franchise, brings their entire family here, then when they get permanent residency they sell to another Indian family back home so they can move here.

[CurlyDave]

...An Indian family buys a 7-Eleven or Motel 6 franchise, brings their entire family here, then when they get permanent residency they sell to another Indian family back home so they can move here...

And there is absolutely nothing wrong with this.

We have set up a system to import hard-working, tax-paying, thrifty, entrepreneurial people with good family values and an ethnic bias toward high intelligence. The kind of solid citizens we need more of. And in 3 generations they have assimilated. I have seen it with my own eyes.

So of course we will dismantle this system in favor of one that imports impoverished Somalian goatherders.

[Armando Guerra]

The history of the EB-5 program really began with the wealthy departing Hong Kong in anticipation of the CCP getting hold of the area. Other countries were benefitting from the capital flight but the US didn't have a program in place. The EB-5 program was created to tap into this investment money but ran into problems over concerns about the source of funds and the potential for money laundering. Restrictions and overburdensome documentation requirements on the program then meant that it was a little used category and not attracting investors as it was meant. The regional center portion was created to allow the pooling of investors and allowing the investors to be less hands on. That is the portion that is up for renewal but has not been passed. It was a very successful in terms of being a major source of capital for many projects.

Politically, you have those who do not want any immigrants even if they are educated and successful business persons arriving with wheelbarrows of cash. Then you have those who only want the uneducated and dependent on government checks. With opposition on both sides of the aisle it looks like it will whither on the vine.

[blueplum]

A wealthy immigrant is fine, but laundering shady money grafted from a corrupt govt, or from running guns, drugs and slaves, into US real property is very not cool. It used to be a smaller world and easier to discern the two.

[Trinity5]

Yes because that’s the norm not the exception...

[dfwgator]

We have set up a system to import hard-working, tax-paying, thrifty, entrepreneurial people with good family values and an ethnic bias toward high intelligence. The kind of solid citizens we need more of. And in 3 generations they have assimilated. I have seen it with my own eyes.

I live in a fairly upscale neighborhood, it's at least 70% Desi here.