37 Comments
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John R. Grout's avatar

Many countries have an investment requirement to buy permanent residency. As long as there is due diligence. Letting triads and other cartel folks buy permanent residency would be a bad idea.

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Gracchus's avatar

They will anyways. Due diligence is just paperwork for lawyers. Serious organized criminals can afford plenty of lawyers.

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Sarah's avatar

Exactly. Canada has a business investment plan which leads to landed immigrant status. The only difference is that the minimum required investment is/was around 500k.

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Dr. Sherri Tenpenny's avatar

fantastic idea!! lots of countries sell citizenship to have a dual citizenship!

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Frances Lynch's avatar

The program currently has a top rate of $1 million, this is just adjusting for inflation :)

And such a program is neither unique nor limited to the US, most countries have something similar.

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Bill Lacey's avatar

Biden was letting cannibals and axe murders into the country free-of-charge. If Trump can charge foreign billionaires $5 million for each member of their family that wants to hang in the Hamptons or South Beach, then that's a radical change from what we've had these past four years. Go for it!

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Lillyput Fields's avatar

I had an immediate negative reaction to it, but the more I thought about it, the more I like it. Here are my reasons that closely align with the bullet points you already laid out:

1. Less opportunity for fraud. EB5 required tracking, specific investment thresholds, etc. This just says, “pay $5million and you get residency.” Any investment and/or jobs are directly tied to the visa itself.

2. Less people will use it than the EB5. While you saw this as a negative, I see it as getting individuals who are INVESTED in the U.S. and not just INVESTING with a golden parachute.

3. I think it has the potential to also replace the H1N visas. If companies are so determined that have to have *special* people with special skills to work for their company, then they can pay the $5mil on behave of that person. Has potential to eliminate fraud in that program as well.

4. Eliminates the lottery system that does not reward or prioritize the type of skills we need.

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John Andersen's avatar

We voted for him three times now, let’s see what he can do.

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Cheryl's avatar

What happens to a program like this when dems are back in charge? It seems that this can be corrupted easily. Why does a path to citizenship have to be incorporated?

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Brenda Jo's avatar

Concerned that more Soros like criminals will populate America, with as many foreign socialists, etc. 5 million is change for some. The vetting process would need to be extreme!

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Tanto Minchiata's avatar

No vetting, no gold card. But in practice as you say, very few will be able to take advantage of this program. The last thing we need is 1,000 CCP agents getting gold cards every year.

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La Gata Politica's avatar

CCP agents have been here, infiltrating our schools and institutions. Let's not ignore the Chinese organizations that have messed with our elections.

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Te Reagan's avatar

My fear is that these people will become politicians.. count on it.

On the flip side. They probably coming anyways. So they might as well pay.

What about HB1 visas?

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Tina Stolberg's avatar

I honestly don't get this. Since when does wealth equate to intelligence, creativity, worthiness, fortitude, or any number of adjectives if the purpose of this program is inviting the best and brightest to become American citizens? Does this mean ordinary people with extraordinary abilities and ideas can't make better citizens? Nonsense.

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La Gata Politica's avatar

Rich foreigners have been paying for special privileges for ever. Now we'll have a formal process with defined parameters and fees.

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Zaq Harrison's avatar

It doesn't, but like Disney it allows you to skip the line

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Joseph Kaplan's avatar

Put the money in the National wealth fund he’s been talking about

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Stephanie S's avatar

I don’t think citizenship should be for sale. Also, what if these “citizens “ start huge land acquisitions? Besides vetting them as closely as possible or placing certain restrictions on their “citizenship “, there is nothing to prevent them from buying property around military bases, etc.

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cat's avatar

I think analyzing how other countries are doing this and having proper controls and goals, this may be a good program. But there needs to be a lot of thought put into vetting the candidates for source of current and future funds, ideology, reasons for applying for the visa, etc. and learning from the mistakes of other countries. And this program should be reevaluated and reauthorized on periodic schedule to ensure that it's not being abused by other countries or people/organizations outside or inside the US. The proceeds should be earmarked for immigration-related efforts such as assimilation courses. The entire EB-5 program should also be revamped to eliminate the abuses because if that can't be done then there won't be trust in the gold-card version. Finally, the needs of current US citizens should always outweigh any of these programs--a consideration that is obviously currently lacking in the US and Europe.

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Kevin Beck's avatar

My first reaction was that this seems like the citizenship by investment programs that many small nations have, like Portugal, Dominica, and Bermuda. But Bermuda and Dominica have these programs as a method of encouraging investment and a reduction of other taxes. But if a foreigner were to sign up for this, he would be committing himself to a lifetime of potential harassment by our IRS. Or would this type of investor be entitled to reduce his income taxes for the rest of his life? I don't think that has been addressed by the Golden Visa program.

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Rick Mastroianni's avatar

Stupid and won’t hold up in court and it reeks of elitism! Trump has to refrain from being too much of an asshole. I do like it when he trolls….but way overboard!

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SF Bay Area's avatar

It already is being done dipshit.

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La Gata Politica's avatar

Damn, you beat me to it. Yes, it's been happening for decades. Remember when Hillary Clinton's brother was selling special Visas?

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Ferg ferguson's avatar

It’s a great idea and the trump people will run it flawlessly..and individuals won’t pay, the corporates will pick the cream of the crop and pay up. Nothing for them. This is what TRUMP does thinking outside the idiot box…

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