24 ms·

Chinese are big customers for schemes selling foreign residency

123 points by La-ang 7y ago

rootsudo 7y ago
This has always been a common theme in Asia/South East Asia and is nothing new. The biggest barriers are: 1. Money/Income 2. Language. 3. Education. You can't fit in if you don't know the language, or literate. That's what makes Student visas so valuable, because it can give an anchor to an family to move abroad. Education, you can't survive abroad w/o income and this is usually hand in hand w/ a degree. Money, well, money is good everywhere.
- theflyinghorse 7y ago
  > You can't fit in if you don't know the language or literature I would invite you to visit Richmond BC which happens to be majority Asian (on top of my head 72% +) and majority of that Chinese. A Chinese national moving to Richmond would not struggle too much without English language. Why did you mention literature at all?
  - filoleg 7y ago
    >Why did you mention literature at all? Not OP, but being literate has a very tangential relationship to literature, so I think you might have just misunderstood what he meant by that word.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - munk-a 7y ago
    A lot of metro-area services that extend into Richmond don't have chinese language support, and moving to a neighboring city will present a number of issues as signage very quickly drops off to english only once you cross the Fraser. Additionally interactions with officials are likely quite stressful if you're very weak in english - the local Services BC almost certainly has quite good language coverage, but law enforcement would be hit or miss - ditto with emergency services (Ambulance, Hospital, Fire). Lastly, if you're going for residency or citizenship then you'll need solid english or french comprehension, and you'll likely be going through the downtown vancouver citizenship office.
ycombonator 7y ago
And so are US birth hotels. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/feds-raid-l-maternity-hotel-birth-tourists-n315996 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/feds-raid-l-maternity-h...
Tiktaalik 7y ago
> But Canada closed its federal programme in 2014 (some provincial schemes, such as Quebec’s, continue). Only mentioned as an aside, but for Vancouverites, this has been very painful. Uniquely Quebec manages its own immigration (let's not get into it) and they have an investor immigration scheme that essentially sells citizenship for a pittance. Of course since persons have freedom of movement there's nothing stopping persons who buy citizenship in Quebec for moving to Vancouver, which almost all of them do. Accordingly while British Columbia has enacted various foreign investor taxes to try to limit the distortions from foreign money on the real estate market, there remain significant impacts of foreign wealth in Vancouver and BC. Sadly federal politicians aren't in much of a rush to annoy the Quebec government by playing hardball on this issue as Canada has an election coming up and Quebec has heaps of seats in play.
- scarejunba 7y ago
  You have to invest $1.2 million and have a net worth of at least $2 million, right? I wouldn't call that a pittance.
  - thooranpoyi 7y ago
    It will be given back without interest. So not an investment but an interest free loan.
  - throwaway2048 7y ago
    Buying real estate counts as "investment" and with the Quebec program, there is zero risk because that 1.2 million is fully guaranteed.
- rapind 7y ago
  My belief has always been foreign capital (speculation) is bad, but immigration is good. So if you want to move here and bring all that foreign capital great! If you want to speculate or park money in Canadian real estate (empty houses and condos) that's really bad for the locals. It never should have been allowed.
introvertmac 7y ago
Peter Thiel wrote about it back in 2014 in his book, Zero to One. We have a different image of China and China has done a great job posing as next superpower but the reality is very different on the ground. Rich Chinese want to get away from China by paying whatever price they can afford, this is not surprising at all!
- paulsutter 7y ago
  China really is the next superpower AND some Chinese are interested in having a lily pad outside China that they can hop to. No conflict between these. Lots of Americans have second passports, including Peter Thiel.
  - z2 7y ago
    A nuance here is that China's nationality laws forbid dual-citizenship and border officials have been (anecdotally) cracking down on it in recent years. There are a lot of grey areas in enforcement, and I'm not sure how it would play out for the rich and powerful, but the general idea is that once you get a second passport, the first one ceases to exist, along with one's hukou, right to property and capital, etc. Thus, as with other countries that don't allow dual citizenship (e.g., Japan, India, Austria, Malaysia, Singapore) getting another nationality is probably a stronger exit signal. Of course, most schemes start by giving permanent residency, which is different and sort of the best of both worlds.
    - f00_ 7y ago
      The US doesn't allow dual-citizenship either right? My girlfriend and her family have Taiwanese, Chinese and US citizenship/passports though. Wonder how that works
      - 24gttghh 7y ago
        https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/legal/travel-legal-considerations/Advice-about-Possible-Loss-of-US-Nationality-Dual-Nationality/Dual-Nationality.html https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/legal/travel-lega... No such restriction exists at least generally.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
yandie 7y ago
Non paywall and non-ad version: https://outline.com/GAF5BU https://outline.com/GAF5BU
- kragen 7y ago
  I don't see any text at that link.
j7ake 7y ago
One solution to this is to improve the visa situations for Chinese nationals. If it weren’t such a pain to travel to western countries with a chinese passport there may be less demand for these foreign residency schemes.
- seanmcdirmid 7y ago
  That isn’t really why they get residency, it’s more of a hedge on the Chinese government, you never know when it will come down on you for a good or bad reason.
coolspot 7y ago
It is large industry. More than one of my acquaintances got their green card and then citizenship by paying $20-$30k for fake marriage to a US citizen.
- damnyou 7y ago
  Another frame: your acquaintances were frustrated at how hard it is to immigrate and figured out a workaround. I strongly believe in freedom of movement so any legal or extra-legal means to do so are all right in my book. Rules are meant to be bent. Laws are meant to be broken.
  - filoleg 7y ago
    >I strongly believe in freedom of movement so any legal or extra-legal means to do so are all right in my book. >Laws are meant to be broken. Those two statements sound a bit conflicting to me. Also, I don’t know how one can call green card marriage fraud “bending the rules” or a “workaround”. It is literally lying to USCIS in order to obtain a green card under false pretenses.
    - damnyou 7y ago
      If they are legally married then how is it fraud? The entire idea of marriage fraud is bogus — it's just another invention used to justify state violence against a disfavored group. Marriages exist in all shapes and forms, many more than the state can think of. For example USCIS apparently puts some people through interviews where they ask for intimate personal details of the spouse, like what side of the bed they sleep on or the color of the toothbrush they use. This implies a particular definition of marriage — one where you sleep on the same bed and use the same bathroom. Yet I know plenty of happily married folks who have generally separate lives, including having separate intimate relationships. That doesn't make their marriages any less valid!
      - filoleg 7y ago
        >For example USCIS apparently puts some people through interviews where they ask for intimate personal details of the spouse, like what side of the bed they sleep on or the color of the toothbrush they use. This implies a particular definition of marriage — one where you sleep on the same bed and use the same bathroom. They aren’t looking for a “particular definition of marriage.” They are looking for inconsistencies and divergences between what each partner says, thus trying to catch them lying. I heavily doubt they will call your marriage fraudulent just because you and your partner don’t share the same bed.
roywiggins 7y ago
Our "First Son-in-Law" has his little hands in this game, too. > the Kushners' company held an event at a ritzy hotel in Beijing to encourage Chinese investments for a development project in New Jersey. > "Invest $500,000 and immigrate to the United States," read a brochure at the event... > A spokesperson for Kushner Companies later apologized for the poor optics, but just two months later, CNN reported that the business was again invoking Kushner's status as a senior White House aide to attract investors. https://www.businessinsider.com/sec-launches-probe-into-kushner-companies-for-use-of-eb-5-visa-program-2018-1 https://www.businessinsider.com/sec-launches-probe-into-kush...
- oh_sigh 7y ago
  What's wrong with that? It's not like that is a secret program that only Kusher has access to. Anyone (with the money) can invest $500k and come live in the US.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - roywiggins 7y ago
    "invoking Kushner's status as a senior White House aide to attract investors" sure makes it look like they're trying to use Jared Kushner's position as a paid White House aide to gain a competitive advantage. When you have two possible EB-5 investment opportunities, and one advertises its a direct line to a senior White House official, which one do you choose? How long would Google keep around a senior executive if he was running a side-business in SEO?
    - jlawson 7y ago
      I want to know what that "invoking" sentence actually means. What exactly did Kushner actually say? Either he did something possibly illegal, or the media is attempting to leave the reader believing a damaging lie without actually saying something they can get called out on. We'd need the original quotes to know which. Until then, we can of course each just assume the reality confirms our prior beliefs.
chaostheory 7y ago
The reasons for this are obvious: 1. Money laundering i.e. How can Chinese government officials embezzle tax money and keep it? Buy real estate overseas and have your family live in them. 2. Tax evasion. Buy real estate overseas and have your family live in them. The education angle makes sense, but imo it's not the main reason.
- rolltiide 7y ago
  But who cares? if we don't respect Chinese rule of law (or lack thereof) then is it money laundering? As in, money laundering requires that the source of money have an illicit origin - not merely the observation thats its being moved around - but if the origin is successfully completely unknown, or if the origin is determined illicit by the Chinese government, then neither of those really satisfy the criteria for vilifying the current recipient
  - chaostheory 7y ago
    > But who cares? Anyone who wants to know where this magic foreign money is coming from. Personally, I'm not judging anyone. At the same time I don't like living in ignorance.
    - rolltiide 7y ago
      Yes, understanding the psychology of market participants is useful Using that info to use public resources on curbing money flows is something I would be against, given that its a fools errand
- jseliger 7y ago
  You're missing the most obvious reason that's far more important: Anyone smart and Chinese knows that there's a very decent chance that the system collapses and/or the government steals all your money and possibly your life. In the US and Canada, it's extremely uncommon for the government to steal a rich person's money and even life, and it virtually never happens without a public trial. Anyone smart, Chinese, and with resources is looking for a way to not be subject to Chinese legal/government jurisdiction, and if you were in China, you'd be doing the same.
rb808 7y ago
The dumb thing is how cheap these go for. If you had to pay 500k for a passport it would make sense. Investing 500k costs very little. You'll likely make more money than if you bought Chinese real estate. Even if you have to borrow 500k its only going to cost you ~10-20k a year.
- Qasaur 7y ago
  As far as I understand the specific law in question, you are disqualified for a investment residency if the money you are using to invest is borrowed from someone else.
selimthegrim 7y ago
As is usual in cases like these, NOLA had their number. http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2015/1/30/chinas-louisiana-purchase-new-orleans-own-battle-of-algiers.html http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2015/1/30/chinas-louis... I remain profoundly ashamed that Al Jazeera rather than an American or local news outlet had to break this story.
- aatharuv 7y ago
  Huh. On the freeway (CA-84) in the SF Bay Area, I keep on seeing an ad for some seminar on H1-B to EB-5 (with Bobby Jindal headlining as a speaker). I wonder if it's related, other than (presumably) being a conduit to invest in Louisiana. (Lots of people on H1-B's especially from India want a faster path to get a green card rather than be stuck in limbo for decades..
- mistermann 7y ago
  Likewise, the South China Morning Post has broken more stories on foreign activity in Canadian real estate markets than Canadian newspapers combined.
BooneJS 7y ago
Our son used to go to a HS in the east bay where foreign nationals would pay residents of the high school to essentially adopt their kid so they could enroll, take every AP and Honors class possible, and get into a UC campus. It’s crazy. We actually hated the public schools and moved away.
- thenewwazoo 7y ago
  That's interesting, back east we called those kids "exchange students" and they were generally academically excellent, as well as adding to the diversity of the student body. And then they did well and got into US universities where they would presumably continue to excel academically. I fail to see the problem.
  - BooneJS 7y ago
    I remember foreign exchange students coming for a year, and they were never adopted by the host family. I guess the Midwest was different than your experience.
- jnbiche 7y ago
  > east bay where foreign nationals would pay residents of the high school to essentially adopt their kid so they could enroll "Essentially adopt"? That's kind of like "essentially pregnant", no? Assuming they weren't legally adopting the kids, it sounds like you're describing an exchange program, which is a time-honored tradition around the world.
  - BooneJS 7y ago
    They were legally taking over parental rights which made them eligible for enrollment as residents for all 4 years. This wasn’t an exchange.
dev_dull 7y ago
Maybe an unpopular opinion, but I think the $500k investment is a great idea. Why is it in our interest for that money to be invested elsewhere? I also think we should staple green-cards to the back of people who receive higher-education degrees in the united states. Unfortunately our immigration system rewards the rule-breakers and encourages people to lie. Like many things in life, the honest people get hosed.
- addicted 7y ago
  While I agree with most of what you say, I'm struggling to see how rule breakers get rewarded. For the most part pretty much everyone in the immigration system gets screwed, other than the wealthiest, whether they buy their residency, or they hire the workers who are either here illegally or legally.
  - dev_dull 7y ago
    Applying for asylum after illegally crossing the border versus applying for asylum before entering the USA.
    - CptFribble 7y ago
      When would refugees fleeing violence with only the clothes on their backs find the time and money to pop into an internet cafe and fill out the application? Or do border guards have a stack of asylum application forms to hand out at crossings?
      - dev_dull 7y ago
        If you apply for asylum at a port of entry you can be denied entry according to the law. If you wait until you’ve illegally crossed into the USA our laws make it very hard to be deported. I don’t blame or judge anyone. Like I said the laws reward those who break the law and punish those who try and follow the law.
Balgair 7y ago
Aside: A lot of comments here mention various methods of paying for various citizenships. Most of them seem somewhat derisive about these pay for a passport schemes, so to speak. But, hold up, isn't this a move in the right direction? Sure, it's all 'rich' people that can do this right now, but having people from lots of different countries moving about, having 'table stakes' in many countries, and generally putting cash into these places, that seems to be a 'good' thing to me. Sure, yeah, it could be a lot better for even us proles. But the world being such a place where these 'schemes' can happen at all seems like it's a good thing.
rainhacker 7y ago
An interesting related incident regarding the role of EB-5 in the financing of Hudson Yards was a top HN post[1] not too long ago. > Manhattan’s new luxury mega-project was partially bankrolled by an investor visa program called EB-5, which was meant to help poverty-stricken areas [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19644880 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19644880

123 points by La-ang 7y ago

This has always been a common theme in Asia/South East Asia and is nothing new. The biggest barriers are: 1. Money/Income 2. Language. 3. Education. You can't fit in if you don't know the language, or literate. That's what makes Student visas so valuable, because it can give an anchor to an family to move abroad. Education, you can't survive abroad w/o income and this is usually hand in hand w/ a degree. Money, well, money is good everywhere.

theflyinghorse 7y ago
> You can't fit in if you don't know the language or literature I would invite you to visit Richmond BC which happens to be majority Asian (on top of my head 72% +) and majority of that Chinese. A Chinese national moving to Richmond would not struggle too much without English language. Why did you mention literature at all?
- filoleg 7y ago
  >Why did you mention literature at all? Not OP, but being literate has a very tangential relationship to literature, so I think you might have just misunderstood what he meant by that word.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- munk-a 7y ago
  A lot of metro-area services that extend into Richmond don't have chinese language support, and moving to a neighboring city will present a number of issues as signage very quickly drops off to english only once you cross the Fraser. Additionally interactions with officials are likely quite stressful if you're very weak in english - the local Services BC almost certainly has quite good language coverage, but law enforcement would be hit or miss - ditto with emergency services (Ambulance, Hospital, Fire). Lastly, if you're going for residency or citizenship then you'll need solid english or french comprehension, and you'll likely be going through the downtown vancouver citizenship office.

ycombonator 7y ago

And so are US birth hotels. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/feds-raid-l-maternity-hotel-birth-tourists-n315996 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/feds-raid-l-maternity-h...

Tiktaalik 7y ago

> But Canada closed its federal programme in 2014 (some provincial schemes, such as Quebec’s, continue). Only mentioned as an aside, but for Vancouverites, this has been very painful. Uniquely Quebec manages its own immigration (let's not get into it) and they have an investor immigration scheme that essentially sells citizenship for a pittance. Of course since persons have freedom of movement there's nothing stopping persons who buy citizenship in Quebec for moving to Vancouver, which almost all of them do. Accordingly while British Columbia has enacted various foreign investor taxes to try to limit the distortions from foreign money on the real estate market, there remain significant impacts of foreign wealth in Vancouver and BC. Sadly federal politicians aren't in much of a rush to annoy the Quebec government by playing hardball on this issue as Canada has an election coming up and Quebec has heaps of seats in play.

scarejunba 7y ago
You have to invest $1.2 million and have a net worth of at least $2 million, right? I wouldn't call that a pittance.
- thooranpoyi 7y ago
  It will be given back without interest. So not an investment but an interest free loan.
- throwaway2048 7y ago
  Buying real estate counts as "investment" and with the Quebec program, there is zero risk because that 1.2 million is fully guaranteed.
rapind 7y ago
My belief has always been foreign capital (speculation) is bad, but immigration is good. So if you want to move here and bring all that foreign capital great! If you want to speculate or park money in Canadian real estate (empty houses and condos) that's really bad for the locals. It never should have been allowed.

introvertmac 7y ago

Peter Thiel wrote about it back in 2014 in his book, Zero to One. We have a different image of China and China has done a great job posing as next superpower but the reality is very different on the ground. Rich Chinese want to get away from China by paying whatever price they can afford, this is not surprising at all!

paulsutter 7y ago
China really is the next superpower AND some Chinese are interested in having a lily pad outside China that they can hop to. No conflict between these. Lots of Americans have second passports, including Peter Thiel.
- z2 7y ago
  A nuance here is that China's nationality laws forbid dual-citizenship and border officials have been (anecdotally) cracking down on it in recent years. There are a lot of grey areas in enforcement, and I'm not sure how it would play out for the rich and powerful, but the general idea is that once you get a second passport, the first one ceases to exist, along with one's hukou, right to property and capital, etc. Thus, as with other countries that don't allow dual citizenship (e.g., Japan, India, Austria, Malaysia, Singapore) getting another nationality is probably a stronger exit signal. Of course, most schemes start by giving permanent residency, which is different and sort of the best of both worlds.
  - f00_ 7y ago
    The US doesn't allow dual-citizenship either right? My girlfriend and her family have Taiwanese, Chinese and US citizenship/passports though. Wonder how that works
    - 24gttghh 7y ago
      https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/legal/travel-legal-considerations/Advice-about-Possible-Loss-of-US-Nationality-Dual-Nationality/Dual-Nationality.html https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/legal/travel-lega... No such restriction exists at least generally.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

yandie 7y ago

Non paywall and non-ad version: https://outline.com/GAF5BU https://outline.com/GAF5BU

kragen 7y ago
I don't see any text at that link.

j7ake 7y ago

One solution to this is to improve the visa situations for Chinese nationals. If it weren’t such a pain to travel to western countries with a chinese passport there may be less demand for these foreign residency schemes.

seanmcdirmid 7y ago
That isn’t really why they get residency, it’s more of a hedge on the Chinese government, you never know when it will come down on you for a good or bad reason.

coolspot 7y ago

It is large industry. More than one of my acquaintances got their green card and then citizenship by paying $20-$30k for fake marriage to a US citizen.

damnyou 7y ago
Another frame: your acquaintances were frustrated at how hard it is to immigrate and figured out a workaround. I strongly believe in freedom of movement so any legal or extra-legal means to do so are all right in my book. Rules are meant to be bent. Laws are meant to be broken.
- filoleg 7y ago
  >I strongly believe in freedom of movement so any legal or extra-legal means to do so are all right in my book. >Laws are meant to be broken. Those two statements sound a bit conflicting to me. Also, I don’t know how one can call green card marriage fraud “bending the rules” or a “workaround”. It is literally lying to USCIS in order to obtain a green card under false pretenses.
  - damnyou 7y ago
    If they are legally married then how is it fraud? The entire idea of marriage fraud is bogus — it's just another invention used to justify state violence against a disfavored group. Marriages exist in all shapes and forms, many more than the state can think of. For example USCIS apparently puts some people through interviews where they ask for intimate personal details of the spouse, like what side of the bed they sleep on or the color of the toothbrush they use. This implies a particular definition of marriage — one where you sleep on the same bed and use the same bathroom. Yet I know plenty of happily married folks who have generally separate lives, including having separate intimate relationships. That doesn't make their marriages any less valid!
    - filoleg 7y ago
      >For example USCIS apparently puts some people through interviews where they ask for intimate personal details of the spouse, like what side of the bed they sleep on or the color of the toothbrush they use. This implies a particular definition of marriage — one where you sleep on the same bed and use the same bathroom. They aren’t looking for a “particular definition of marriage.” They are looking for inconsistencies and divergences between what each partner says, thus trying to catch them lying. I heavily doubt they will call your marriage fraudulent just because you and your partner don’t share the same bed.

roywiggins 7y ago

Our "First Son-in-Law" has his little hands in this game, too. > the Kushners' company held an event at a ritzy hotel in Beijing to encourage Chinese investments for a development project in New Jersey. > "Invest $500,000 and immigrate to the United States," read a brochure at the event... > A spokesperson for Kushner Companies later apologized for the poor optics, but just two months later, CNN reported that the business was again invoking Kushner's status as a senior White House aide to attract investors. https://www.businessinsider.com/sec-launches-probe-into-kushner-companies-for-use-of-eb-5-visa-program-2018-1 https://www.businessinsider.com/sec-launches-probe-into-kush...

oh_sigh 7y ago
What's wrong with that? It's not like that is a secret program that only Kusher has access to. Anyone (with the money) can invest $500k and come live in the US.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- roywiggins 7y ago
  "invoking Kushner's status as a senior White House aide to attract investors" sure makes it look like they're trying to use Jared Kushner's position as a paid White House aide to gain a competitive advantage. When you have two possible EB-5 investment opportunities, and one advertises its a direct line to a senior White House official, which one do you choose? How long would Google keep around a senior executive if he was running a side-business in SEO?
  - jlawson 7y ago
    I want to know what that "invoking" sentence actually means. What exactly did Kushner actually say? Either he did something possibly illegal, or the media is attempting to leave the reader believing a damaging lie without actually saying something they can get called out on. We'd need the original quotes to know which. Until then, we can of course each just assume the reality confirms our prior beliefs.

chaostheory 7y ago

The reasons for this are obvious: 1. Money laundering i.e. How can Chinese government officials embezzle tax money and keep it? Buy real estate overseas and have your family live in them. 2. Tax evasion. Buy real estate overseas and have your family live in them. The education angle makes sense, but imo it's not the main reason.

rolltiide 7y ago
But who cares? if we don't respect Chinese rule of law (or lack thereof) then is it money laundering? As in, money laundering requires that the source of money have an illicit origin - not merely the observation thats its being moved around - but if the origin is successfully completely unknown, or if the origin is determined illicit by the Chinese government, then neither of those really satisfy the criteria for vilifying the current recipient
- chaostheory 7y ago
  > But who cares? Anyone who wants to know where this magic foreign money is coming from. Personally, I'm not judging anyone. At the same time I don't like living in ignorance.
  - rolltiide 7y ago
    Yes, understanding the psychology of market participants is useful Using that info to use public resources on curbing money flows is something I would be against, given that its a fools errand
jseliger 7y ago
You're missing the most obvious reason that's far more important: Anyone smart and Chinese knows that there's a very decent chance that the system collapses and/or the government steals all your money and possibly your life. In the US and Canada, it's extremely uncommon for the government to steal a rich person's money and even life, and it virtually never happens without a public trial. Anyone smart, Chinese, and with resources is looking for a way to not be subject to Chinese legal/government jurisdiction, and if you were in China, you'd be doing the same.

rb808 7y ago

The dumb thing is how cheap these go for. If you had to pay 500k for a passport it would make sense. Investing 500k costs very little. You'll likely make more money than if you bought Chinese real estate. Even if you have to borrow 500k its only going to cost you ~10-20k a year.

Qasaur 7y ago
As far as I understand the specific law in question, you are disqualified for a investment residency if the money you are using to invest is borrowed from someone else.

selimthegrim 7y ago

As is usual in cases like these, NOLA had their number. http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2015/1/30/chinas-louisiana-purchase-new-orleans-own-battle-of-algiers.html http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2015/1/30/chinas-louis... I remain profoundly ashamed that Al Jazeera rather than an American or local news outlet had to break this story.

aatharuv 7y ago
Huh. On the freeway (CA-84) in the SF Bay Area, I keep on seeing an ad for some seminar on H1-B to EB-5 (with Bobby Jindal headlining as a speaker). I wonder if it's related, other than (presumably) being a conduit to invest in Louisiana. (Lots of people on H1-B's especially from India want a faster path to get a green card rather than be stuck in limbo for decades..
mistermann 7y ago
Likewise, the South China Morning Post has broken more stories on foreign activity in Canadian real estate markets than Canadian newspapers combined.

BooneJS 7y ago

Our son used to go to a HS in the east bay where foreign nationals would pay residents of the high school to essentially adopt their kid so they could enroll, take every AP and Honors class possible, and get into a UC campus. It’s crazy. We actually hated the public schools and moved away.

thenewwazoo 7y ago
That's interesting, back east we called those kids "exchange students" and they were generally academically excellent, as well as adding to the diversity of the student body. And then they did well and got into US universities where they would presumably continue to excel academically. I fail to see the problem.
- BooneJS 7y ago
  I remember foreign exchange students coming for a year, and they were never adopted by the host family. I guess the Midwest was different than your experience.
jnbiche 7y ago
> east bay where foreign nationals would pay residents of the high school to essentially adopt their kid so they could enroll "Essentially adopt"? That's kind of like "essentially pregnant", no? Assuming they weren't legally adopting the kids, it sounds like you're describing an exchange program, which is a time-honored tradition around the world.
- BooneJS 7y ago
  They were legally taking over parental rights which made them eligible for enrollment as residents for all 4 years. This wasn’t an exchange.

dev_dull 7y ago

Maybe an unpopular opinion, but I think the $500k investment is a great idea. Why is it in our interest for that money to be invested elsewhere? I also think we should staple green-cards to the back of people who receive higher-education degrees in the united states. Unfortunately our immigration system rewards the rule-breakers and encourages people to lie. Like many things in life, the honest people get hosed.

addicted 7y ago
While I agree with most of what you say, I'm struggling to see how rule breakers get rewarded. For the most part pretty much everyone in the immigration system gets screwed, other than the wealthiest, whether they buy their residency, or they hire the workers who are either here illegally or legally.
- dev_dull 7y ago
  Applying for asylum after illegally crossing the border versus applying for asylum before entering the USA.
  - CptFribble 7y ago
    When would refugees fleeing violence with only the clothes on their backs find the time and money to pop into an internet cafe and fill out the application? Or do border guards have a stack of asylum application forms to hand out at crossings?
    - dev_dull 7y ago
      If you apply for asylum at a port of entry you can be denied entry according to the law. If you wait until you’ve illegally crossed into the USA our laws make it very hard to be deported. I don’t blame or judge anyone. Like I said the laws reward those who break the law and punish those who try and follow the law.

Balgair 7y ago

Aside: A lot of comments here mention various methods of paying for various citizenships. Most of them seem somewhat derisive about these pay for a passport schemes, so to speak. But, hold up, isn't this a move in the right direction? Sure, it's all 'rich' people that can do this right now, but having people from lots of different countries moving about, having 'table stakes' in many countries, and generally putting cash into these places, that seems to be a 'good' thing to me. Sure, yeah, it could be a lot better for even us proles. But the world being such a place where these 'schemes' can happen at all seems like it's a good thing.

rainhacker 7y ago

An interesting related incident regarding the role of EB-5 in the financing of Hudson Yards was a top HN post[1] not too long ago. > Manhattan’s new luxury mega-project was partially bankrolled by an investor visa program called EB-5, which was meant to help poverty-stricken areas [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19644880 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19644880