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.
There's a very similar story involving the Clintons.
Hillary Clinton's brother, Tony Rodham, and her 2008 campaign manager and former governor of Virginia, Terry McAuliffe, were involved in a Green-Card investment scheme that looks pretty shady. Rich Chinese people were told they were investing in an electric car startup. With political big shots involved, they thought the scheme was legitimate and had political backing. The money disappeared with little to show in the way of actual electric-car development, and the investors sued.
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.
> 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.
If we only had a technology that could be used to build more housing units on a given plot of land, we could probably build as many housing units as people want to buy. Until such technologies emerge from the land of science fiction, we'll be stuck with shortages, because the problems are really technical, not legal.
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.
I think this is confusion of two pretty distinct things, I'm fine with affluence being a metric in the immigration process (especially if, as with Canada, the government directly profits from the temporary use of that money) - the issue in Vancouver more lies in the usage of vacant properties to park money from overseas, since cities suffer from having artificially lowered vacancies it is pretty proper that a vacancy tax is leveraged on these properties to recoup the lost value - the issue here is mostly that the prior Premier worked to block such a tax repeatedly, we now have the tax in place though it's implementation is still having some growing pains.
Thus we're getting some utility out of recouping lost value from the tax, but the disincentive the tax would have represented has come in too late to avoid the huge property value spike, ideally we'll see those inflated values decrease somewhat as real estate as a savings account becomes less attractive and starts depreciating the parked value quicker.
There is also the issue that it's hard to audit residency currently.
That Quebec is the only province that avails itself of the opportunity to attract immigrants to itself rather than relying on the federal government is to its credit. If the Anglophone provinces don’t feel like exercising the powers they and Quebec share that’s their problem, not Quebec’s.
> 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.
Most every province seems to have some sort of provincial nominee program in place for granting permanent residence. They're just not usually designed for investors.
> 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
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.
The gov sometimes has these campaigns that sweep through and affect both guilty and innocent. Some try to keep a “get out of jail card” so to speak, if need ever be. That’s what much of this is.
Would this the same Peter Thiel who bought himself[1] a New Zealand citizenship, just in case things go south in his home country? Sounds like an expert on that playbook.
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..
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.
Greece has a program where you invest 250k euros (real estate is a common one) and you get a residency permit good for 5 years and can be renewed as long as you still own that real estate. After 5 years you can apply for a permanent residency, five years of that you can apply for citizenship. Now, Greece isn't the best country but even as a resident you and your family get total access to the rest of the EU.
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
[+] [-] roywiggins|6 years ago|reply
> 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-kush...
[+] [-] DiogenesKynikos|6 years ago|reply
Hillary Clinton's brother, Tony Rodham, and her 2008 campaign manager and former governor of Virginia, Terry McAuliffe, were involved in a Green-Card investment scheme that looks pretty shady. Rich Chinese people were told they were investing in an electric car startup. With political big shots involved, they thought the scheme was legitimate and had political backing. The money disappeared with little to show in the way of actual electric-car development, and the investors sued.
1. https://www.politico.com/story/2017/11/28/greentech-automoti...
2. https://www.politico.com/story/2015/03/report-cites-favoriti...
[+] [-] oh_sigh|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Tiktaalik|6 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] jseliger|6 years ago|reply
https://www.vox.com/a/new-economy-future/urban-sprawl-housin...
[+] [-] rapind|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] munk-a|6 years ago|reply
Thus we're getting some utility out of recouping lost value from the tax, but the disincentive the tax would have represented has come in too late to avoid the huge property value spike, ideally we'll see those inflated values decrease somewhat as real estate as a savings account becomes less attractive and starts depreciating the parked value quicker.
There is also the issue that it's hard to audit residency currently.
[+] [-] barry-cotter|6 years ago|reply
That Quebec is the only province that avails itself of the opportunity to attract immigrants to itself rather than relying on the federal government is to its credit. If the Anglophone provinces don’t feel like exercising the powers they and Quebec share that’s their problem, not Quebec’s.
[+] [-] vinay427|6 years ago|reply
Most every province seems to have some sort of provincial nominee program in place for granting permanent residence. They're just not usually designed for investors.
Example of Ontario: https://www.ontario.ca/page/ontario-immigrant-nominee-progra...
[+] [-] thatfrenchguy|6 years ago|reply
Their website say 1.2M$ ? That’s a pittance ?
[+] [-] moltar|6 years ago|reply
- limited country representation to a X% only
- added a law that enforces that immigrants are intending to reside in QC and even now must learn French
- investment amount was raised
[+] [-] walshemj|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thooranpoyi|6 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] scarejunba|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dev_dull|6 years ago|reply
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|6 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] introvertmac|6 years ago|reply
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|6 years ago|reply
No conflict between these. Lots of Americans have second passports, including Peter Thiel.
[+] [-] mc32|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sangnoir|6 years ago|reply
1. https://www.nzherald.co.nz/indepth/national/how-peter-thiel-...
[+] [-] markdown|6 years ago|reply
He has no credibility when it comes to immigration.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/indepth/national/how-peter-thiel-...
[+] [-] selimthegrim|6 years ago|reply
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|6 years ago|reply
(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|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] coolspot|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] moftz|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] damnyou|6 years ago|reply
Rules are meant to be bent. Laws are meant to be broken.
[+] [-] rootsudo|6 years ago|reply
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|6 years ago|reply
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?
[+] [-] BooneJS|6 years ago|reply
It’s crazy. We actually hated the public schools and moved away.
[+] [-] thenewwazoo|6 years ago|reply
I fail to see the problem.
[+] [-] jnbiche|6 years ago|reply
"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.
[+] [-] ycombonator|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rb808|6 years ago|reply
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|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Balgair|6 years ago|reply
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|6 years ago|reply
> 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
[+] [-] chaostheory|6 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] jseliger|6 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] rolltiide|6 years ago|reply
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
[+] [-] yandie|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kragen|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] j7ake|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] seanmcdirmid|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|6 years ago|reply
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