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Comment by shapefrog | Hacker News Reader

EB-5 Immigrant Investor Program - all it takes is 1mil usd and you are in.

Back then it was 500k. And also it's not that you loose the money, you actually do invest it but it has to be on businesses that the government green lights as "job creators". When I looked into it, those were mostly agriculture or real estate.

It’s still 500k to invest in poor locations. Unless I’m out of date and that has changed as well

If I remember correctly, some fancy places in New York are eligible for the 500k exemption. Might check that!

I think they used a gerrymandering type argument that the fancy place was part of an area including a bunch of poor folk. The drawing of the area was kind of creative. It was taking the piss slightly but they got away with it.

You need to invest the money too. From my understanding most people pool the money into a ready-to-go Real Estate Development company which then makes real estate loans. Hence it's an equity investment, meeting the EB5 requirement, but in practice its basically a bond. Real estate money gets refinanced as long as the deal is not terrible.

Gotta wonder how "real estate" qualifies as a job creating field. Sounds like BS to me

Last I checked, my mortgage does in fact have interest on it, and the company that services that loan does have employees.

Sure, a call center. Same as any business that sells a service to the public.

Yeah I mean it's not zero, but there's a lot of capital going into a thing that's not employing _that many people_, even beyond the value judgements around that.

Granted, maybe "real estate" here also means construction (which has its issues but I mean, people are building stuff). But I'm imagining more the "let me invest in buildings and make money off of it"-style industries.

In an ideal completely honest and devoid of mischief world, immigration policy would be everyone lives and works wherever they want. So yeah, the argument that immigration policy is bullshit stands on its own weight.

The investor visa is basically the ruling class telling you they will let you work in their companies if you also invest in the place where they park their generational wealth.

I think the investment is supposed to support 10 US jobs. Mostly in construction I imagine. There is a certain amount of BS.

If you've got the chops to run a hedge fund, an O-1 parlayed into an EB1A green card.

Or, if you're from a listed country, an E-2 treaty investor visa.

> If you've got the chops to run a hedge fund

Apparently not.

Is there anything more? Just make a 1M investment and you get a greencard?

Actually many countries have similar systems in place. For instance Spain's costs around 500,000 EUR (and then you must live in Spain for the next 10 years)

Reactions to discovering this kind of thing exist tend to vary. https://www.goldenvisas.com/country

The temptation to buy a passport for an island somewhere for a 'donation' is strong, however, its not as obvious as a shiny car in your driveway.

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