A controversial visa program, known as the EB-5, which allows wealthy foreign nationals to promise significant domestic investments in trade for Green Cards has been extended in the latest spending bill.
Under the EB-5 visa, foreign nationals can claim that they will invest $500,000 and thus receive Green Cards for their entire family for at least two years, with pathways to citizenship available as well. The only requirement is that the EB-5 holder create 10 U.S. jobs.
Center for Immigration Studies’ (CIS) Fellow David North has argues the EB-5 visa program is riddled with fraud and abuse, often leading to lawsuits and convictions.
The 2017 budget, which will continue funding the U.S. government until October, includes the extension of the EB-5 visa program, as lawmakers slipped the extension of the program into the spending bill.
EB-5 immigrant visa-holders primarily come to the U.S. from China. The program has endured public embarrassment for years, as more fraud cases involving the program come to light.
In a recent EB-5 fraud case, a Chinese couple was accused of getting $27 million in investments from some 50 Chinese investors, but did not end up using the investment as the EB-5 program mandates.
Instead, Law360 reports, the Chinese couple allegedly transferred nearly $13 million to three Chinese marketing firms. One of the firms is run by the couple. Another $7 million from what was supposed to be the EB-5 program investment was allegedly transferred to the wife’s personal bank account.
The EB-5 program is most famously opposed by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), where she says it allows wealthy foreign nationals to buy their way through the legal immigration process and eventually to gaining U.S. citizenship.