Citizenship For Sale?

Citizenship For Sale?

finance.yahoo.com

You can't simply purchase an American passport (at least not legally). But since 1990, foreigners with as little as $500,000 in cash have been able to invest their way to a quick green card, putting them on the path to citizenship. Yes, the U.S. government lets people with cash to jump the line for a green card through the EB-5 program. Of the 10,000 visas in the program, 3,000 are set aside for "targeted employment areas" -- rural areas, or places with an unemployment rate that's 150 percent or more of the national average. For these visas, the threshold is lowered to $500,000.

(visit the link for the full news article)


Related News Links:
www.uscis.gov
www.americanlaw.com
business.ezinemark.com

With all the hyperbole about Homeland security, immigration, and nationalism that has permeated our recent American conversational landscape, isn't it nice to know that, when it's all said and done, the status quo is still the status quo?

Forget giving us your tired, your poor, and your huddled masses... Just send us your millionaires, your corporate CEO's, and your trust fund babies. All are welcome here!

Now to be fair, this program hasn't provided citizenship to droves of rich people. But, then again, as I understand it, not many actually want to come here. Heck, most of our own rich tend to head for the South of France and the Mediterranean anyway.

They do bring jobs, which is a plus, when this loophole is used. But, in the end, is it truly in keeping with the American ideal to allow the privileged easier access to our shores? Or are we proving to the world that we, ultimately, are as shallow and opportunist as popular opinion paints us to be?

~Heff


finance.yahoo.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

Originally posted by Hefficide

Forget giving us your tired, your poor, and your huddled masses... Just send us your millionaires, your corporate CEO's, and your trust fund babies. All are welcome here!


~Heff

I laughed a little bit when i read this reply to the first post
*Terrorists* Funded by the USA could get into the country to terrorize us though?
Tax payers dollars are paying for them to come here?

I didn't care to read the whole article to see who they would disclude but... paying 1/2 a mill to get into the USA to cause $100s of millions in property damage seems like a win for terrorists. But then again its not like they are really causing it. Damn i hate getting confused with conspiracy and facts

$500,000 eh?

That is an expensive one way ticket onto a sinking ship.

reply to post by Hefficide


Canada too. This has always been the way of things. Yet, I would rather equalize by bringing in refugees and educating their children what our nations equality and values mean and stand for. Every new immigrant that is employed creates 3 new jobs servicing the public, and these stats have been well known for a long long time.
Most who gain access to Canada do find employment.

reply to post by Unity_99


I know this is off topic but I would love to live in Canada.....ten years ago the wife and I paid over £150 to Peter Morris (heartless mofo) to get visa and find employment......heard nothing and got scammed basically.....was looking at British Columbia around the Creston region.

Those dreams have passed for my wife as she has a very good job here, but one day I would love to live there.
Ive never been to Canada but my Grandad was Canadian and came to Britain in WW2......I did a lot of research and im sure it has to be better than this sh!t country.

anyhoos, totally off topic but just love Canada

This is true of Canadian citizenship as well. There are certain "groups" that people can fall into in order to obtain access to the country, and later citizenship. People can fall under 6 groups including family, refugees, and business, which essentially means people that want to invest in the Canadian economy are granted free passage into it. Pretty much, it's buying your way in.

The ONLY people coming in should be those with at least 1 million to their name.

We have no need for poor, uneducated, or people who would otherwise be a drain on society.

reply to post by BigTimeCheater


Maybe you should be kicked out in the meantime... (assuming you don't have a million, like millions of other Americans).

In researching this I have ended up on the Wiki for this law "EB-5" which is listed as a bill by Lugar and Kerry - though oddly the link to the senate press release about the bill is dead?!? Interesting...

The Wiki page found here gives a state by state breakdown of where these regional centers with high unemployment rates, which is where these "investments" must be made and which industries they must be made in.

Interesting to note that the lists are predominantly for retail, hospitality, service industry, agricultural jobs. Are we really trolling for foreign investors to come here and give us more of the same horrible jobs we already have too many of?

Would manufacturing jobs not make more sense?

No wonder we are in this situation... A nation of Wal Mart door greeters and Taco Bell drive through techs..

~Heff

Originally posted by BigTimeCheater
The ONLY people coming in should be those with at least 1 million to their name.
We have no need for poor, uneducated, or people who would otherwise be a drain on society.

This nation was built upon the sweat, labor, and innovation of those poor, uneducated people. The reality is that the rich tend to drain and the poor tend to work. I'd take a hard working person with motivation and dreams, but with no money, any day over a rich person who is simply looking for ways to expand his wealth off of my hard work.

~Heff

Originally posted by Unity_99
reply to post by Hefficide

 

Canada too. This has always been the way of things. Yet, I would rather equalize by bringing in refugees and educating their children what our nations equality and values mean and stand for. Every new immigrant that is employed creates 3 new jobs servicing the public, and these stats have been well known for a long long time.
Most who gain access to Canada do find employment.

And yet those of us born here can search for over 2 years and not even get callbacks.

Of course most who immigrate here find jobs. If they are not here on refugee status, they are given a test to (essentially) determine if they will be able to get a job here or not. Age, education, special skills, experience, language levels, financial standing. All of this is taken into account when applying for the right to immigrate.
Refugees have a much harder time of getting jobs, due to the sheer amount that get turned away a year or two later. People are less likely to hire someone if they can be evicted from the country on practically no notice. Once they get approved it becomes much easier, obviously, because they have a guarantee that they can keep the job.



On the main note of this thread, this made me laugh:

Ask how much you'd have to be paid to give up American citizenship for you and your family and assume that of a randomly chosen foreign country. Something tells me the bidding would start at a point much higher than $500,000.

lol no. I'd take 100 grand in a split second. I'd consider 10 grand, if I got to know which country it would be beforehand. Anywhere that I wouldn't be at a disproportionate risk of being murdered or otherwise injured.


reply to post by chupa-chups


Yeah, my mom has had the very sad experience of working in the department that has to tell people they aren't allowed to stay (they actually lied to her about the job description, because they were so understaffed that they conveniently "forgot" her main duty to get her to work there). Those "immigration lawyers" aren't really lawyers in most cases. They have no training. They are more likely to waste your money and never answer your phone calls than actually help you. So many people get scammed, at least you lost your money before you tried to enter a country as a refugee, and then lost your case and had to leave to the place you had to flee from because your "lawyer" forgot to put in your paperwork. Some of them, they really would have been able to stay if the person had just mailed the forms in....

Originally posted by Hefficide

This nation was built upon the sweat, labor, and innovation of those poor, uneducated people. The reality is that the rich tend to drain and the poor tend to work. I'd take a hard working person with motivation and dreams, but with no money, any day over a rich person who is simply looking for ways to expand his wealth off of my hard work.

~Heff

AMEN!

Now if we could only find a way to get government the hell out of our way, and out of our lives, we could return to building this nation.

The best of the American dream, and all of the motivation one can muster is no longer enough to rise above poverty in this country, because there is always some bureaucracy in the way, taxes here, ridiculous regulations there, and god forbid you try to employ people, then you have even more government to deal with.

No wonder people are simply giving up and living off of the government, you can't win, so why bother?

As for the rich, why should any of them invest in business?

They are better off hording their money, or leaving the country all together.

Why would anyone want to buy citizenship here and enter into this madness?

Originally posted by Portugoal
reply to post by BigTimeCheater

 

Maybe you should be kicked out in the meantime... (assuming you don't have a million, like millions of other Americans).

Reading comprehension would do you a world of good.

Try reading it again, this time focus on the term "coming in".

No one has a right to enter the U.S. if they are not a citizen. Emigrating here is a privilege, subject to certain stipulations.

Originally posted by Hefficide

Originally posted by BigTimeCheater
The ONLY people coming in should be those with at least 1 million to their name.
We have no need for poor, uneducated, or people who would otherwise be a drain on society.

This nation was built upon the sweat, labor, and innovation of those poor, uneducated people. The reality is that the rich tend to drain and the poor tend to work. I'd take a hard working person with motivation and dreams, but with no money, any day over a rich person who is simply looking for ways to expand his wealth off of my hard work.

~Heff

Who do you think employs those "poor people who work"?

Hint: The "rich".

Originally posted by BigTimeCheater

Who do you think employs those "poor people who work"?

Hint: The "rich".

That's a very post modern way of looking at it. Very Fox News. But it is not accurate. Here is the truth of the matter, for your perusal...

Small firms:
• Represent 99.7 percent of all employer firms.
• Employ half of all private sector employees.
• Pay 44 percent of total U.S. private payroll.
• Generated 65 percent of net new jobs over the past 17 years.
• Create more than half of the nonfarm private GDP.
• Hire 43 percent of high tech workers ( scientists, engineers, computer programmers, and others).
• Are 52 percent home-based and 2 percent franchises.
• Made up 97.5 percent of all identified exporters and produced 31 percent of export value in FY 2008.
• Produce 13 times more patents per employee than large patenting firms.

Small firms accounted for 65 percent (or 9.8 million) of the 15 million net new jobs created between 1993 and 2009.
Much of the job growth is from fast-growing high-impact firms, which represents about 5-6 percent of all firms and are on average 25 years old.

Source

Contrary to what some folks want us to believe... The rich do not feed us, or throw us the scraps from their table. WE feed THEM. The working class creates the jobs, provides the innovation, and then does the work. This is the spirit of entrepreneurship. And this is the backbone of our economy.

~Heff

reply to post by Hefficide


That's why the top 2% of the richest people in America pay the majority of the taxes in our country huh? Just so they can expand their wealth as you say?

Hate to break it to ya, but those rich people you despise, put most Americans to work! And yet you wanna criticize?

Stupid is as stupid does in your case huh?

reply to post by 2Rotten4u


Well aren't you just a ball of sunshine? Got a clue for you friend, insults won't get you far on ATS!

Middle-class Americans--not the poor or the rich--pay the majority of annual tax revenues taken in by the federal government, according to data in a new Congressional Budget Office study. Households earning less than $34,300 per year, meanwhile, actually pay a negative average federal income tax rate.

Middle-class households that earned between $34,300 and $141,900 paid 50.5 percent of all federal tax revenues in 2007 (the most recent year analyzed), according to the CBO study released Thursday, and households that earned between $34,300 and $352,900 paid 66.7 percent of all federal taxes.

Source

Always nice to back up statements when you make them. That way the rest of us can check them for veracity and accuracy and make sure that nobody is just regurgitating rhetoric and propaganda.

And, yes, stupid often is as stupid does.

~Heff

Can I sell my citizenship? It seems being a citizen doesn't really confer any more rights and non-citizens (illegals especially) seem to get more protections and a stronger political voice.

reply to post by Hefficide


You failed to provide what your definition of rich is.

The "working class" do not employ anyone, just like the title suggests, they are the worker bees.

The rich do indeed create innovation. Need an example? If you want to talk about the uber rich, take a look at Richard Branson. Think he isnt using his billions to create innovation?