The EB-5 visa program, as discussed here and elsewhere, is one of the most egregious of the government’s legal residence giveaways. It actually makes it possible for wealthy investors–from, say, China–to purchase, from our State Department, green cards leading to full U.S. citizenship. Not surprisingly, EB-5 has been fraught with fraud and controversy. It is an officially approved way for the world’s super-rich–who turn out in about 85 percent of cases to be Chinese–to buy their way into this country.
The spirit of EB-5 has always been contrary to the traditional “tired-and-huddled-masses” cant. The program is up front in calling for the “energetic-and-well-heeled” and is almost refreshing on that account. At least the newcomers are offering something tangible for a change. Yet selling off your country piece-by-piece to foreign elites is as sure-fire a way of losing it as is importing the world’s penurious excess.
Created in 1990 by the Immigration Act of that year, EB-5 has been renewed year after year, like the vast majority of federal programs that are born and utterly refuse to die, regardless of the corruption they attract.
At midnight on June 30, however, EB-5 lost its funding from Congress and now may or may not be dead. For one thing, this lapse of funding has happened before–most recently in 2018. At that time, however, Congress ending up renewing it at a later date. That could happen again, but David North of the Center for Immigration Studies has posted today an explanation of why he thinks this year might be different.
If EB-5 is actually, once and for all, defunct, we say good riddance to bad rubbish. Otherwise, we shrug and remind ourselves that government programs, like the blood-sucking vampires they so closely resemble, cannot die.
For more, see CIS.org.