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The EB-5 Program and Obama’s Economic Citizenship Hypocracy
Happy New Year, if you are a foreign national and want to become a U.S. citizen. I’ll let you in on a not-so-secret quick route – but I hope you’ve got a spare half million dollars to spend.
It’s called the “EB-5 immigrant investor program” and it is waiting for several thousand wealthy foreigners, who are willing to “invest” at least $500,000 in U.S. government-designated projects in areas of America the Obama administration thinks need still more stimulation for their troubled local economies.
By the way, you would also be investing Obama’s 2012 re-election success.
If you qualify for EB-5 status, you’re probably not one of the “tired huddled masses yearning to be free” about whom the 19th century American-Jewish poet, Emma Lazrus, wrote so movingly.
In exchange for their $500,000 investments, lucky foreigners may receive not only dividend payments (if any) resulting from the projects – but also the highly prized U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Service “green cards” for themselves and their families for immediate entry into the United States of America.
The number of these eager foreign applicants has nearly quadrupled in the last two years to more than 3,800 in the 2011 fiscal year.
Demand has grown so fast that the Obama administration, which is promoting the program, is now seeking to speed up the application process.
Statistics suggest that EB-5 applicants also find the program appealing because it is much speedier than the other, more typical, options.
Nearly 70% of immigrants granted investor visas in 2009 were from China or South Korea, countries whose nationals normally face decade-long waits for family-reunification visas because of quotas on the annual number allowed in from any one country.
The U.S. Promotes “Citizenship for Sale”
Though, until recently, the number of applicants each year was less than 3000, the amount of money invested through EB-5 visas has grown from $500 million in 2006 to more than $1 billion in 2008.
Since then, in New York City alone, developers have raised, or plan to raise, close to $1 billion on EB-5 area projects.
However, as you might expect after three years of Obama and the prevailing Chicago-style politics that has accompanied him, the EB-5 program now operates under a cloud of political hypocrisy.
There have been allegations of corruption and a growing number of protests which claim the EB-5 program is little more than the questionable sale of U.S. citizenship.
As the author of The Passport Book, (the latest edition has just been published), I am often asked: “Which country will grant me immediate citizenship?”
The dual answer is that only the eastern Caribbean nations of the Commonwealth of Dominica and St. Kitts & Nevis have quick “economic citizenship” programs that allow qualified persons and their families to pay around $250,000 to become citizens within a few months.
But the U.S. Government has Denounced “Citizenship for Sale”
There are alternatives, such as Panama and Belize, where immediate residence is available. This can lead to possible citizenship, but not on-the-spot citizen status. (Beware: the Internet is loaded with illegal, criminal offerings of phony citizenship for sale for huge fees to unwary dupes with more money than sense).
However, EB-5 has U.S. government hypocrisy written all over it.
The official past opposition of the government has been demonstrated by U.S. pressure on Dominica and St. Kitts & Nevis to cease their programs of selling citizenship.
Indeed, the State Department has categorically denounced “citizenship for sale” programs and it has also opposed similar schemes in Ireland, Grenada and Cape Verde, both now abolished.
As usual, the U.S. claimed that “terrorists” might use the programs as a cover.
What is the EB-5 program if not the sale of citizenship?
However, perhaps the greater hypocrisy is the lip service President Obama and his so-called Department of Justice practices as they assure U.S. border state residents they are doing all they can to curb illegal immigration – even as the DoJ sues the State of Arizona for its anti-illegal alien laws.
With all the angry debate in America about illegal immigration and the building of thousand-mile long fences, you hear little or nothing about the million dollar EB-5 legal immigration program.
That silence may be a cover for alleged official corruption in the EB-5 program.
Public notice of something fishy is increasing. A New York Times article on Dec. 18, detailed how U.S. and local officials have stretched EB-5 rules to qualify politically connected projects.
These developers rely on gerrymandering techniques to create development zones that are supposedly in areas of high unemployment, thus eligible for special concessions, but actually are in prosperous areas.
Overseas Investors and U.S. Developers Have Flocked to the Program
With tight-fisted American banks hardly lending their bailout billions, U.S. business and construction projects are pleading for private investors – and EB-5 is delivering them by the thousands.
Urged on by federal and state officials, investors in places such as Shanghai and Seoul, along with American developers, have been flocking to the program, which was created by Congress during the 1990 recession.
Just Google “EB-5” and you’ll see a host of fee-charging “how to” seminars in faraway places.
Abuse in the EB-5 program is nothing new. The program was “restructured” in 2002 after problems arose with fraud.
Under the current program, foreign investors no longer serve as day-to-day managers of the projects. The program now operates like a mutual fund, and leaves the management to the project promoters, who get the foreign cash.
An Ideal Opportunity for Fraud
However, immigrant investors are more focused on obtaining visas than maximizing profits or the developments themselves.
Combine that with the government’s limited capacity for oversight, and even proponents of the EB-5 program now fear that fraudulent projects will flourish.
Now contrast this “first class” route to citizenship with the long waiting lists of official applicants, and with the 22 million or more illegal aliens being threatened with deportation by campaigning U.S. presidential candidates or desperate Mexicans risking death in the Arizona desert.
As F. Scott Fitzgerald once said to Ernest Hemingway: “The rich are different than you and me.”
To which Hemingway replied: “Yes, they have more money.”
That certainly goes for the U.S. EB-5 immigration program as well.
Faithfully yours,
Bob Bauman JD,
Chairman, Freedom Alliance
P.S. For those Americans considering heading in the opposite direction, seeking residence and citizenship offshore, you can get the brand new edition of The Passport Book here.
Other Posts from the Author
- Are You Among the 23% Entitled to a Second Passport? - May 14th, 2012
- The Real Problem With the French Elections - May 4th, 2012
- The Life of a “Sovereign Individual” - April 24th, 2012
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