US visa programme popular with Chinese derided as ‘immigration reform for 1 per cent’

With immigration a hot topic on the presidential campaign trail, unions and immigrant advocates are targeting a federal visa programme popular with Chinese that they deride as “immigration reform for the 1 per cent.”

The target of a series of news conferences in a half-dozen cities is the EB-5 immigrant investor programme, which allows foreigners to get green cards by investing at least US$500,000 in American businesses, as long as the money creates at least 10 jobs.

Created by Congress in 1990 as a way to stimulate the US economy, the programme is supported by business groups and has increasingly been used in recent years by real estate developers and other firms seeking foreign investors. In the District, for example, investors have put up more than US$110 million and created more than 1,500 jobs through projects such as the Marriott Marquis convention centre hotel, according to a trade group that backs the programme.

But with legislation authorising EB-5 set to expire next month, immigrant advocates are highlighting what they say are unpublicised problems. They say that the programme doesn’t create as many jobs as advertised and that those jobs it does create don’t benefit the nation’s estimated 11.3 million illegal immigrants, some of whom work on the projects.

“We have this programme that gives a pretty fast track to immigrants from the 1 per cent and gives incredible advantages to developers,” said Isaac Ontiveros, a research analyst for Unite Here, a union that represents nearly 300,000 hotel, casino and food service workers. He estimated that one-third of businesses funded by EB-5 are hotels or casinos.

With efforts to overhaul the nation’s immigration system dead for now in Congress, Ontiveros added: “How does this help the 11 million people in this country who are stuck in immigration reform limbo?”