3 ms·

As someone who has been going through the green card process for over 3 years now, $100k seems cheap to get rid of all the expense, effort and risk required to

As someone who has been going through the green card process for over 3 years now, $100k seems cheap to get rid of all the expense, effort and risk required to do it legitimately under the current system. Having said that, simply "selling entry" would lead to a lot of rich people moving here and buying up property, driving prices sky-high(er) in coastal cities. This is the issue right now in London where lots of Arab and Russian oligarch-types taking advantage of non-domicile tax laws drive up the cost of living but don't contribute to the economy in a meaningful way. Before you say "trickle down", sure they spend money on nannies and posh food, but that's trivial compared to the vast fortunes they store and control outside the UK. Something like an investment or startup visa would help to ensure that people are coming here to be productive members of society. There's the EB-5 ($1m+ and ridiculous amounts of red tape) and the E-2 (Arbitrary amount around $100k, but no route to permanent residence), but both are broken programs.

beagle3 15y ago
> This is the issue right now in London where lots of Arab and Russian oligarch-types taking advantage of non-domicile tax laws drive up the cost of living The US tax law is not like that. If you're a legal permanent resident (i.e. a green card holder), you pay taxes for everything you own and make everywhere in the world. So that's not actually a problem. It is also the reason why those Arab and Russian oligarch types won't be moving to the US any time soon. (It's already cheap enough for them at $1M -- going down to $100k won't make a difference. The British requirement, BTW, is 500K pound, which is ~$750K)
jimbobimbo 15y ago
> As someone who has been going through the green card > process for over 3 years now, $100k seems cheap to > get rid of all the expense, effort and risk required > to do it legitimately under the current system. As someone who recently got one through employment, I'd say $100k is a hefty price tag: legal expenses on a fully completed GC process is around $10k. During the time you're spending $10k, you are employed and are getting paid prevailing wage for the area of employment (more, if you are good at what you do - employer doesn't want to lose you). Granted, things won't be so rosy for people from India or China due to time constraints, but $100k cash for these folks won't really be that easy either, I guess.
- lambda 15y ago
  Everyone in this thread seems to assume that people will have to front the cash. Wouldn't it be more likely that they'd get a loan? But yeah, $100k does seem a bit steep. That's almost the price of a college education, and a substantial fraction of the price of a good house. And in this economy, a lot of people are already having trouble paying both of those off; adding $100k on top of that for immigration would put this out of the reach of many people that I think that we do want to encourage to move here. As a natural born citizen of the US who has many foreign friends, I am appalled at what they have to go through to get citizenship here. Some of them have managed to pull it off; some have given up and moved back home, or to other countries in which it's easier to get a work visa. And these are Ivy-league educated folks with masters degrees and PhDs in business and technical fields. I cannot believe that we are making it so difficult for such people to come to the US.
  - garethsprice 15y ago
    (From experience:) You need to show where all money came from that you use towards meeting immigration requirements. For most uses you can't use the proceeds of a loan to count towards it. $100k's pretty cheap for a professional - there's enough of a salary differential between the US and most other places in the world (especially once factoring taxes in - eg. pay is high in Switzerland but so are taxes) that it would not take more than a few years to make back the $100k. Agree that it's shocking how difficult it is for smart, educated individuals to immigrate at a time when the country needs to be attracting global talent to maintain it's lead.
  - jimbobimbo 15y ago
    > Wouldn't it be more likely that they'd get a loan? I'd love to see the terms on this kind of loan: people coming to US from the abroad do not have any credit history whatsoever. Now, if this will be some government-sponsored loan, I could only imagine the amount of bureaucracy involved and timelines for that. If one were to look for better way for immigration problem resolution - Canada and Australia have decent processes of getting people they need in.

beagle3 15y ago

> This is the issue right now in London where lots of Arab and Russian oligarch-types taking advantage of non-domicile tax laws drive up the cost of living The US tax law is not like that. If you're a legal permanent resident (i.e. a green card holder), you pay taxes for everything you own and make everywhere in the world. So that's not actually a problem. It is also the reason why those Arab and Russian oligarch types won't be moving to the US any time soon. (It's already cheap enough for them at $1M -- going down to $100k won't make a difference. The British requirement, BTW, is 500K pound, which is ~$750K)

jimbobimbo 15y ago

> As someone who has been going through the green card > process for over 3 years now, $100k seems cheap to > get rid of all the expense, effort and risk required > to do it legitimately under the current system. As someone who recently got one through employment, I'd say $100k is a hefty price tag: legal expenses on a fully completed GC process is around $10k. During the time you're spending $10k, you are employed and are getting paid prevailing wage for the area of employment (more, if you are good at what you do - employer doesn't want to lose you). Granted, things won't be so rosy for people from India or China due to time constraints, but $100k cash for these folks won't really be that easy either, I guess.

lambda 15y ago
Everyone in this thread seems to assume that people will have to front the cash. Wouldn't it be more likely that they'd get a loan? But yeah, $100k does seem a bit steep. That's almost the price of a college education, and a substantial fraction of the price of a good house. And in this economy, a lot of people are already having trouble paying both of those off; adding $100k on top of that for immigration would put this out of the reach of many people that I think that we do want to encourage to move here. As a natural born citizen of the US who has many foreign friends, I am appalled at what they have to go through to get citizenship here. Some of them have managed to pull it off; some have given up and moved back home, or to other countries in which it's easier to get a work visa. And these are Ivy-league educated folks with masters degrees and PhDs in business and technical fields. I cannot believe that we are making it so difficult for such people to come to the US.
- garethsprice 15y ago
  (From experience:) You need to show where all money came from that you use towards meeting immigration requirements. For most uses you can't use the proceeds of a loan to count towards it. $100k's pretty cheap for a professional - there's enough of a salary differential between the US and most other places in the world (especially once factoring taxes in - eg. pay is high in Switzerland but so are taxes) that it would not take more than a few years to make back the $100k. Agree that it's shocking how difficult it is for smart, educated individuals to immigrate at a time when the country needs to be attracting global talent to maintain it's lead.
- jimbobimbo 15y ago
  > Wouldn't it be more likely that they'd get a loan? I'd love to see the terms on this kind of loan: people coming to US from the abroad do not have any credit history whatsoever. Now, if this will be some government-sponsored loan, I could only imagine the amount of bureaucracy involved and timelines for that. If one were to look for better way for immigration problem resolution - Canada and Australia have decent processes of getting people they need in.