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There are a handful of U.S. Senators, along with some in the White House, who are looking to slip an increase of legal immigration into the emergency spending bills currently being drafted to deal with the coronavirus outbreak.
The EB-5 program gives green cards to foreign nationals seeking to immigrate with their families to the U.S. in return for an investment in a commercial venture in the U.S. for two years, at the end of which, the investor can withdraw his/her money and get green cards for the rest of the family.
In the plan, the investor never has to visit the company or be involved in any way other than writing a check. Nor does the company have to have U.S. employees. Quite simply, the EB-5 visa program is the selling of U.S. citizenship.
The provisions being discussed would increase the number of EB-5 visas to 75,000 and lower investment requirements to $450,000. Currently, the EB-5 visa limit is 10,000 and the investment requirement is $900,000.
According to the New York Times, the EB-5 program is known to be highly corrupt, yet a group of wealthy real estate developers “spent as much as $3 million to help defeat legislation co-sponsored by [Senator] Grassley and Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, intended to address fraud and national security concerns.”
The May 8, 2017 editorial by he Washington Post is correct: “ending EB-5 should be a no-brainer.” Do not allow any increases in the EB-5 program to slip into a coronavirus package.
Tell our U.S. Senators, Mr. Leahy and Mr. Sanders, to oppose provisions in the emergency stimulus bill to increase the EB-5 visa program, a program designed for wealthy developers that is rampant with fraud and national security risks.
The most important thing we can do is call our two U.S. Senators and urge them to oppose any efforts to slip an EB-5 increase into the economic stimulus package. Congress should not be burying bad immigration policy into emergency bills.
— The Editor ■
Note: Special thanks to Numbers USA for assistance with this week’s editorial.
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