Selling American Citizenship
September 15, 2015
FROM VOCATIV:
Every year, about more than 9.2 million people from around the world enter America’s Green Card lottery. If they are one of about 50,000 names picked at random, they get a free pass to legally resettle in the U.S. But there’s also another way to get the doors to the U.S. to open: cough up half-a-million dollars. And the Chinese are taking full advantage of it.
More than 9,000 Chinese immigrants basically bought their way into America last year. Chinese citizens were issued roughly 40 times more investor visas (also known as EB-5 visas) than any other country. South Korea was second, with just 225 immigrant investor visas. Five countries — China, South Korea, Vietnam, China (Taiwan-born) and Mexico — accounted for a staggering 90 percent of all investor visas issued in 2014, according to the U.S. Department of State.
