Buy a house, get citizenship?! Yes, it’s true
A reader sent along a story published in a Bulgarian newspaper about an outrageous-sounding scheme offered to foreigners: Invest in real estate. Win American citizenship. Yes, it’s true. And I’ve told you about it before. More on that in a minute.
From Bulgaria:
Investment in real estate in US guarantees a green card
16:58 Thu 15 Jan 2009 – Nick IlievThe purchase of a piece of property in America, a single-family house, a PUD (planned unit development) or a condo (flat within a condominium) will guarantee you and your family a green card. This is one of the extreme measures implemented to help stall the meteoric fall of the United States economy in light of the economic crisis, Bulgarian weekly Stroitelstvo Gradut reported on January 15.
Thirty-five accredited investors will have the opportunity to acquire real estate in the south-eastern state of Florida – by purchasing a house – they will be granted a green card for permanent residence and right of employment for the buyer himself and his/her entire family.
Additional conditions are that the prospective buyer must have a clean criminal record, a good credit record, the ability to present and prove a decent monthly income, and no outstanding financial obligations or credit liabilities. The purchase itself can be done either with cash, bank transfer or monthly instalments, but the financial resource must be proven legitimate.
The US government has allocated 10 000 such visas nation-wide for potential investors in real esate, under a programme approved by the US Congress. Florida’s is the first such programme that has actively been given the green light to commence. Specialists in the field argue that this is the best time to invest and purchase property in America, as prices in some states have been slashed by as much as 25 per cent. Experts argue that within three years’ time, however, the market will stabilise and prices will rise.
Would Congress really approve such a money-grubbing and potentially dangerous scheme?
You betcha. I first reported on the EB-5 program eight years ago this month and blogged about it 2 years ago. You will not be surprised to learn who the supporters of the program are. God save us from bipartisanship.
Flashback:
Jan. 24, 2001
American citizenship for sale?
Michelle Malkin
In his inaugural address, President George W. Bush issued a call to reinvigorate citizenship: “We are bound by ideals that move us beyond our backgrounds, lift us above our interests, and teach us what it means to be citizens. Every child must be taught these principles. Every citizen must uphold them.”
Bush can do his part by eliminating one of the greatest abuses of American citizenship: the immigrant investor visa program. It has spawned a niche market in skirting laws, scratching backs, and selling out.
This fraud-ridden scheme was created under an obscure section of the 1990 Immigration Act, signed by Bush’s father. Known as the EB-5 law, it allows wealthy foreigners to purchase green cards by investing between $500,000 and $1 million into new commercial enterprises or troubled businesses. After two years, foreign investors, their spouses, and children all receive permanent resident status – which allows them to contribute to U.S. political campaigns and provides a speedy gateway to citizenship.
Making political access and the privilege of citizenship available to the highest foreign bidder offends the very ideals Bush wants to promote. Arkansas Senator Dale Bumpers, a longtime critic of the program, noted: “All you need is green. You do not have to know anything about the poor and huddled masses that Emma Lazarus wrote about…How crassly we demean this precious blessing we call citizenship.”
Supporters of the program claimed it would attract substantial overseas investment to aid struggling American businesses. But the benefits of this economic development plan have gone mostly to former Immigration and Naturalization Service officials, who formed lucrative limited partnerships to cash in on their access.
Here’s how the racket worked: Immigrant investors paid token fees to these partnerships. The partnerships secured promissory notes for the remainder of the foreign investments, which were forgiven after investors received their permanent green cards. Former INS employees, working for these partnerships, aggressively lobbied their old colleagues to accept such bogus financial arrangements. As a result, according to an internal U.S. Justice Department investigative report, “aliens were paying $125K” instead of the required $500,000 to $1million minimum, and “almost all of the monies went to the General Partners and the companies who set up the limited partners.”
A Baltimore Sun investigation last year found “only a tiny fraction of the money ever made it to the companies seeking assistance.” Many of the distressed U.S. firms that the program intended to help have closed because they never received promised funding.
Steven Perlman, a New York City immigration lawyer who sued the government to disclose parts of the internal investigative report, told me last week that the EB-5 program became a “money-making machine.” That wouldn’t have been possible, Perlman notes, without political protection. One INS document indicates that officials worried about keeping “promises to the Hill.” When the agency finally moved to end fraud, “influential Members of Congress protested,” according to the New York Times.
Key supporters of the immigrant investor visa program included Democrat Sens. Paul Simon and Ted Kennedy. Republicans embraced it, too. Prescott Bush, W.’s uncle, was on the board of American Immigration Services, one of the leading visa vendors. So was former President Bush’s INS commissioner, Gene McNeary. And leading GOP Sen. Mitch McConnell worked closely with the woman who was instrumental in drafting the EB-5 law: Maria Hsia, a McConnell donor who later laundered more than $100,000 in illegal donations to the Democratic National Committee through a California Buddhist temple.
At the time Hsia was working for McConnell and others on the immigration bill, she also worked for a campaign fund-raising group called the Pacific Leadership Council. Hsia co-founded the PLC with Lippo Bank officials John Huang and James Riady, the chief figures in the Clinton-Gore Donorgate scandal convicted of campaign-finance crimes. At least six Lippo Bank officials have reportedly benefited from the EB-5 law.
Was this visas-for-sale program established to launder foreign funny money into our political system? We may never know for sure, but President Bush should shut down this suspicious pipeline now and stop the shameless pimping of Lady Liberty.
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- Urban Republicanism 101 « JoHNBRoDiGaNDoTCoM
- Michigan Taxes Too Much » Detroit’s renewal might be solved by a great citizenship boondoggle
- Buy a house, get citizenship?! Yes, we can! | Fire Andrea Mitchell!
- ThisGlobe.com Blogs » Buy a house, get citizenship?! Yes, it’s true
- ButAsForMe! » Buy a house, get citizenship?! Yes, it’s true
- Shut Up Hippy » Blog Archive » Buy a house, get citizenship?! Yes, it’s true
- F3 Coalition - [Faith. Family. Freedom.] » Blog Archive » Inaugural Double Standards
- Inaugural Double Standards
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Great Idea!!!
In a perfect world, our immigration rate would depend on how much an applicant wants to be an American. Whether or not they are willing to join, participate, believe and contribute.
It would be nice to deport a few “natural born citizens” who don’t hold with any of that as well.
I understand your point, Bill…I just, don’t agree with it.
On January 17th, 2009 at 12:40 am, Jeff2161 said:
That’s Ok, but just out of curiosity though, where did I lose you with:
Wouldn’t it be nice to pack people like Michael Moore or Rosie O’Donnell up in a box with some newspaper shavings on the bottom and ship them to Bouvet Island? (The only downside that I can see is that they might breed a race of obnoxious wheezing superfatasses.) We could also send Joy along in case they need a snack on the ride down. Win/Win.
For quite some time. For more on immigration sell-out, visit http://www.vdare.com
Bill, I’d rather not get into popularity contests for citizenship. I have no desire to be sent to a work camp in another country.
Hey. If they would have had such high standards for everyone all along, we wouldn’t be in this financial mess.
No. In a perfect world our immigration rate would depend on how much WE want them to be Americans, not on how much THEY want it. Because there are a couple of billion people out there who’d really like to join us.
Michelle, you have everyone reading this post curious as to who it was that was banned, well everyone with the exception of 1…com’ on tell us…paweeese.
On January 17th, 2009 at 11:07 am, Jeff2161 said:
Well, to torture my “perfect world” scenario even further; perhaps people wouldn’t take their citizenship for granted if it could be revoked. Regardless, pegging immigration (legal and illegal) to the unemployment has been our de-facto “policy”. It has gotten us about 12-15 million people who we have no idea who they are but we are somewhat sure they are willing to do the “Jobs Americans wont”. (Like crippling our health care system, filling our prisons and accepting government handouts while demanding that we assimilate to their culture.)
I don’t envision a lot of “work” going on at the imaginary Bouvet island Fantasy Spa for Parasites/Politicians and Dirtbags and you could probably outrun Rosie and Michael, so no worries.
On January 17th, 2009 at 3:24 pm, flenser said:
Which “We”? The guys who pick up people at the Home Depot to mow their lawn or the guys who hire illegal immigrants to cut up your meat at the processing plant? Or MS13 and the Latin Kings who need drug mules? There are a lot of “we” that can’t be trusted to do anything other than the self destructive and short sighted, unfortunately.
You see, in my “perfect world” scenario they would all cry when they saw the Statue of Liberty for the first time, learn English with a “standard accent”, settle down and in a few years of hard work be living in Greenwich Ct and voting Republican. In yours they just might be coming here because some creep in Minnesota wants to save .38 cents an hour by hiring Somali cab drivers who upon arrival demand that they shouldn’t be required to transport people with seeing eye dogs because it is against Sharia law. Oh wait… That’s what we have already.
Not if we keep going on the way we are. We will be joining them.
Thomas Paine said, “That which we obtain too easily, we esteem too lightly.” With the lefts continued assault on individual liberty, American culture, and patriotism why are we surprised to see the sale of American citizenship? Like the Papal indulgences that broke the power of the Catholic Church in Europe, such sales indicate the wane of American power. The sale of citizenship is not the problem, but a symptom. Rather, it is the attitude behind such a sale that points to the trouble. We had all better wake up before the situation is too far gone to retrieve.
The “We the people” we. The ones whose country this is supposed to be. The ones the government is supposed to be responsible to.
No, those people are supposed to be in jail.
I think you’re joking. Either that or you also believe that Obama will give each of us our own unicorn.
Are you saying you oppose open borders?
On January 18th, 2009 at 1:28 am, flenser said:
The same ones who just elected Obama… There are some practical considerations there in giving 305,636,648 (as of writing) a thumbs up or down on everyone who knocks at the door.
The key word there is supposed. Why aren’t they? Are we all of a sudden in an imperfect world?
On that I was serious as a heart attack.
If that means he can confiscate a disproportionate amount of my earnings, inheritance, property and pass it out on the basis of who has failed worst and moaned loudest or whomever supported him best. Or whomever has a claim to a cultural or racial grievance against anyone, regardless of whether I was involved… Erode my liberty, freedom and leave just enough to keep folks from getting the pitchforks and torches… If it will further poison the education/entertainment/legal system and outright steal things from people who have been too smart or talented to make something… Well, you get the idea. I expect to be getting a unicorn horn up the ass sometime in the next 104 days.
Yes. We actually have “discussed” this before.
The following is probably only tangentially related to the current thread, but since there is no open thread this morning (for Sunday) I’ll include it here… Just the same, I like to recommend it as required reading for every American.
Here’s a story published this morning and written by Traci Carl – carried by the AP: “Mexican collapse? Drug wars worry some Americans”
I think this link will work
For those that have not been following developments (if indeed, you can call them such thing – /end dry sarcasm) to the south, it seems Mexico is much closer to being a dysfunctional failed state than most realize.
Can the Federal Government PLEASE get serious about BORDER SECURITY and be quick about it?!?!?!
anyone know who was banned?