Countries Around the World are Moving to Restrict Immigrant Investor Visas
Jose Nino
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According to David North, a fellow of the Center for Immigration Studies, four nations are working to restrict immigrant investor programs.
Those countries are India, Ireland, Portugal, and the United States.
With regards to Portugal and Ireland, their respective golden visa programs are about to be scrapped. In the other two countries, there is likely to be a reduction in these kinds of visas, which are also labeled CBI, for “citizenship by investment”.
Per a Reuters article posted on February 14, 2023, Ireland decided to terminate its program in order to comply with suggestions from the European Union, which views such visa programs as “security risks”. Russian oligarchs have allegedly been major users of golden visas.
On February 16, IMIdaily.com reported that Portugal let its golden visa program expire.
In contrast to most countries with CBI programs, Portugal’s program is largely centered around residential real estate. 98% of these visas went to the residential program. Under new reforms, the residential visa holders will have to move into their properties full-time in order to maintain their visa status.
Due to more and more countries restricting investor programs, manipulative oligarchs from abroad may start setting their sights on the US, which has a highly flawed EB-5 program that’s designed to attract investments.
Several US policymakers have picked up on the problems with investor visas. The US House recently passed the
Amigos Act to address this problem. North explained why the House passed this legislation:
That technique was to sell its citizenship to aliens (notably ones from China who were blocked from entering the U.S. by long waiting lists), giving them the opportunity to enter the U.S. while they waited for their EB-5 visas to mature by also investing in the (less expensive) temporary E-1 and E-2 visas, as treaty investors and treaty traders, as we reported years ago.
The House voted that one had to be a citizen of Grenada for three years before using this ploy.
Indeed, such reforms are necessary to protect the US from one of the nastier effects of mass immigration. Namely, oligarchical foreign nationals setting up shop, buying massive amounts of property to price out natives, and even installing themselves politically to undermine the country’s sovereignty. At the end of the day, the US needs wholesale immigration restrictions imposed on foreign nationals of all races, economic backgrounds, and creeds. The country already has enough foreigners within borders as it is.
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