Which presidential candidate would step forward on the issue?
By Sujeet Rajan
NEW YORK: While Hillary Clinton has made her position clear on illegal immigrants, she and the GOP candidates in the fray for the 2016 presidential elections have not yet come forward on how they will fix the broken immigration system when it comes to dealing with the plight of legal, skilled immigrants who are waiting in line for a Green Card, for a decade or more.
There are loopholes aplenty in the Department of Homeland Security when it comes to dealing with illegal immigrants, lack of resources and manpower being major factors.
However, when it comes to legal immigrants, it’s a travesty of justice that on one hand the US doles out Green Cards like candy to anybody who can pay a minimum of $500,000, through its controversial EB-5 investor visa program, and on the other hand turns its face away to the plight of legal immigrants who are stuck in limbo for more than a decade waiting for a Green Card, through the vexatious country caps on EB-1 and EB-2 routes. Some experts estimate that those in EB-3 line for a Green Card may have to wait for 30 years or more to get a Green Card.
During the course of that painful wait of a decade and more, these legal immigrants, most of whom were employed on H-1B visas, or studied in the US on F1 visas, then took up a job on H-1B visa, and then were sponsored by their companies for a Green Card, pay federal and state taxes, contribute to social security and buy health insurance, year after year, all of which adds up to substantially; keeps the economy going.
The EB-5 visa holders, who are given a Green Card, are often foreigners who buy the visa as a security cover for their families and themselves if they were to ever be forced to leave their country, or prefer to have their sons and daughters ultimately settle down in the US.
Once their initial investment of $500,000 is done with, on which they earn at least 6-8 percent returns, the foreign investor has no other obligation, to either settle down and pay taxes in the US. He or she can come down for a visit as a tourist for a few days every year and maintain that Green Card till they decide to apply for citizenship. These investors often have no compulsion to start a business here and play by American rules. They have no real connection or understanding of American society.
These foreign investors, who buy a Green Card, often live in China and India. They buy that Green Card by paying $500,000 into a housing project in New York City, for example. That initial payment is supposed to generate 10 jobs for two years, a pre-requisite for the Green Card. Agents take care of that for the investor who does not have to set foot in the country during the entire process. Private companies earn more profits from those projects.
The University of Chicago Law School professor Eric Posner surmised last week writing for Slate that the investment of $500,000 at returns of a low 6 percent actually translates to only $10,000 investment for citizenship. He has a word for the EB-5 visa program: scam.
“If you want to find a real scam involving a country that sells citizenship to foreigners, you don’t need to look overseas. Here at home we do just that with a ludicrous program for ‘immigrant investors.’ It’s the worst combination of bad economics, political cronyism, and unfairness—and it has been endorsed by saints of capitalism Warren Buffett and Bill Gates,” Posner wrote in his piece for Slate.
The skilled immigrants on the other hand, who contribute actively to American society, root themselves by starting a family, buying a house, getting involved in their community activities, go through years of emotional and financial stress waiting for that elusive Green Card. The fortunate ones get it – after paying tens of thousands of dollars to lawyers and the DHS; others less unfortunate, don’t even get a Green Card after that all that wait. Some may die waiting for a Green Card.
These skilled immigrants who slowly make America their real choice of home are more likely to start a business in the country and generate employment than these foreign investors who ultimately see America as a ‘safe haven’ if they ever need one.
In the long run, skilled immigrants settled here in the US, who study and work here, contribute much more than half a million dollars to the state and national economy. America is richer, a more developed nation today because of these skilled legal immigrants.
The quickest way for as political candidate to get noticed in the 2016 presidential elections would be to lay down a blueprint on how they would deal with this current unfairness in the American immigration system. It’s time to stop the EB-5 visa program, or at least be judicious about it, as to who gets it, and who should not.
It’s time for politicians to say that anybody waiting in line for a Green Card for 10 years or more, and in good legal standing, would automatically qualify for a Green Card.
(Sujeet Rajan is the Editor-in-Chief of The American Bazaar)
6 Comments
America already has enough people, too many people. America is already the third most populated nation in the world, behind only China and India.
Legal immigration today, when America is already over-populated, dwarfs the levels of famous immigration into America in the year 1900, when America was under-populated and building thousands of factories and in need of factory labor.
If someone in India, or China, or Indonesia, or Brazil, or Nigeria is so smart and intelligent, then why not stay in your own country and try to make it a better place?
when did you migrate to US ? why dont you back to your own country. You dont even know how immigration system works. so pathetic of you. You should know that family based immigration is more in numbers than employment based immigration. There are about 270000 family based immigration green holders so calculate things first before you talk something else.
“dwarfs the levels of famous immigration into America in the year 1900”
You cannot be serious.
The decade of 1900-1910 alone saw almost 10 million immigrants being admitted and that accounted for almost 14% of the entire population. We are nowhere those numbers nowadays on a % basis.
The peak was in the decade of 1990-2000 where about 12 million were also admitted, but the numbers have come down to about 900,000/yr since then. On a % basis that’s 3% of the population every 10 years, far below the average of Europe, Australia, South Korea, etc (USA actually ranks 22).
Plus in case you missed the memo, most of Asia and Europe have an ageism crisis on their hand. The USA would be on the same boat if it wasn’t for immigration.
I know everyone in IT hates immigrants, but they are actually necessary. Not everybody in the job market works in IT. There are also chemical engineers, mechanical, doctors, nurses, etc all fields with severe shortage problems that would be utterly screwed if it wasn’t for the immigrant workforce.
The USA has only half the population density of Samoa… its effectively empty, except for cities.
I completely agree with the notion that America should give green cards to H-1b holders. However, as an EB-5 insider, this article and Eric Posner got a few facts mixed up. First, the article says that EB-5 investors get 6%-8%, which is untrue. Investors generally do not receive any interest payments and they have to pay at least 10K fees to the middle man. It’s not like they purchased US treasury bonds with that money. The half million USD invested are subject to extremely high risk. The projects that benefit from these investments usually cannot get funding from banks because of high risk or if they do they would need to pay high interest. The money from investors are helping America build infrastructures and keeping American employed. In fact, in order for investor to get the visa, they have to prove that their money help create 10 jobs for American. That’s worth something isn’t it? This is actually a pretty big deal because government is not pumping money in these areas and foreign investors are. This is win-win for both parties. I am not saying this program is perfect. It’s not. The middleman is getting too much from this progress for one thing and chance of fraud is higher than expected. But these are nothing that cannot be addressed. Overall this program benefits the economy and should be continued.
I completely agree with the notion that America should give green cards to H-1b holders. However, as an EB-5 insider, this article and Eric Posner got a few facts mixed up. First, the article says that EB-5 investors get 6%-8%, which is untrue. Investors generally do not receive any interest payments and they have to pay at least 10K fees to the middle man. It’s not like they purchased US treasury bonds with that money. The half million USD invested are subject to extremely high risk. The projects that benefit from these investments usually cannot get funding from banks because of high risk or if they do they would need to pay high interest. The money from investors are helping America build infrastructures and keeping American employed. In fact, in order for investor to get the visa, they have to prove that their money help create 10 jobs for American. That’s worth something isn’t it? This is actually a pretty big deal because government is not pumping money in these areas and foreign investors are. This is win-win for both parties. I am not saying this program is perfect. It’s not. The middleman is getting too much from this progress for one thing and chance of fraud is higher than expected. But these are nothing that cannot be addressed. Overall this program benefits the economy and should be continued. Get the fact right, OK?