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Chinese are big customers for schemes selling foreign residency

economist.com

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Re: Chinese are big customers for schemes selling foreign residency

#61

Post by justaguyhere »

filoleg wrote: post #51
damnyou wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>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.

It is fraud but more importantly, it only takes a few cases like this for USCIS to make the rules even more tight than they already are. A few bad apples make the system incredibly difficult for the majority. Then slowly more people start breaking the rules (after all, life is short, noone wants to wait decades), then the system becomes even more difficult and the cycle continues.

I guess every system begins with good intentions and finally ends up getting unfriendly as people abuse it.

One can argue that it is the system creators' job to make the system fair and difficult to game, but that is a topic for another time...

end rant :(

Re: Chinese are big customers for schemes selling foreign residency

#62

Post by moftz »

coolspot wrote: post #17

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.

Re: Chinese are big customers for schemes selling foreign residency

#63

Post by oh_sigh »

roywiggins wrote: post #20

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 bus…

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.

Re: Chinese are big customers for schemes selling foreign residency

#64

Post by TomMarius »

vkou wrote: post #35
rapind wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Foreign capital, when it is invested in productive enterprise is good. It reduces the cost of borrowing money, which stimulates your economy, promotes value creation, etc. Assuming you believe that this sort of economic activity is a net good, that is. (And I think that even a dyed-in-the-wool socialist will agree, under the right tax system.) Foreign capital, when invested into a limited, rationed, speculative resou…

The problem is not foreign capital but that someone thought that limiting housing construction would be a good idea

Re: Chinese are big customers for schemes selling foreign residency

#65

Post by Tiktaalik »

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #29
Tiktaalik wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason why the Feds ended their version of an investor immigration scheme is because a study found that refugees ended up paying more in income taxes than investor immigrants lmao. So yeah immigrants are great, but it has been abundantly clear that the rich persons buying citizenship are doing so just to have a passport of convenience and buy land as a safe investment and the gains for the rest of Canadian societ…

>a study found that refugees ended up paying more in income taxes than investor immigrants Citation? I mean, presumably there's a citable study out there somewhere. That immigrants in general pay in more taxes sounds plausible. That refugees are a greater net positive (taxes in minus benefits out) than investors, who are basically all wealthy enough to use minimal government services, seems like a stretch.

There's a bunch of articles if you google the right words, but basically in 2014 Jason Kenny cancelled the program because a Canadian government data showed that millionaires weren't really hanging around and contributing.

> According to CIC, investor immigrants reported average earnings of about $18,000 in their first year and just $28,000 after 15 years. After three years, only 47 per cent of such immigrants reported any income. The Canadian average is 67 per cent.

> Meanwhile, refugees (those who come to Canada under hardship) reported first-year average incomes of $20,000 and after 15 years those incomes rose to $30,000. Two-thirds of refugees reported income by their fifth year, on par with Canada’s average.

> After five years, only 39 per cent reported income, suggesting investor immigrants may leave the country (or declare non-residency) after the citizenship process is complete.

https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/refugees-reporting-high...

Re: Chinese are big customers for schemes selling foreign residency

#66

Post by [deleted] »

jetrink wrote: post #15
markdown wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Peter Thiel is a crook who conned the New Zealand government into giving him citizenship and then never showed up in the way he said he would. He has no credibility when it comes to immigration. https://www.nzherald.co.nz/indepth/national/how-peter-thiel-...

Not that I agree or disagree, but that is simply an ad hominem attack.

[deleted]

Re: Chinese are big customers for schemes selling foreign residency

#67

Post by vkou »

TomMarius wrote: post #64
vkou wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Foreign capital, when it is invested in productive enterprise is good. It reduces the cost of borrowing money, which stimulates your economy, promotes value creation, etc. Assuming you believe that this sort of economic activity is a net good, that is. (And I think that even a dyed-in-the-wool socialist will agree, under the right tax system.) Foreign capital, when invested into a limited, rationed, speculative resou…

The problem is not foreign capital but that someone thought that limiting housing construction would be a good idea

Vancouver, SF, Seattle are all going through unprecedented construction booms. There are more active cranes in Seattle at the moment then there are anywhere in North America.

This has not stopped housing costs from going through-the-roof. People are buying houses to speculate, new residents (foreign rich, or migrating techies) are buying houses with staggering amounts of money - amounts that existing residents could never hope to save up.

Re: Chinese are big customers for schemes selling foreign residency

#68

Post by [deleted] »

oh_sigh wrote: post #63
roywiggins wrote: post #20

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 bus…

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]

Re: Chinese are big customers for schemes selling foreign residency

#69

Post by dev_dull »

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.

Re: Chinese are big customers for schemes selling foreign residency

#70

Post by roywiggins »

oh_sigh wrote: post #63
roywiggins wrote: post #20

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 bus…

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.

"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?

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