In a new column in The Conversation, School of Public Policy Professor John Rennie Short revealed how immigrants can be treated differently based on wealth.
Short wrote about how Canada’s Immigrant Investor Program and the UK’s Tier 1 investor visa are among many programs that provide economic incentives for wealthy immigrants. Short also focused on how such policies play out in the United States: “Since 1990, the US has an employment-based program tailored for the wealthy entitled EB5. Under this program, 10,000 visas each year are reserved for investors to receive permanent residence status if they invest at least US$1 million (only $500,000 in high unemployment and rural areas) in a commercial enterprise that employs at least 10 full-time US workers.
Studies by trade groups estimate that the program contributed $3.39 billion to US GDP and resulted in 42,000 jobs in fiscal year 2012, while a more critical review of the EB5 program came to the conclusion that the visas are too cheap, the program is badly run and the bulk of the money goes to already overheated real estate markets.”
Professor Short wrote about how the programs referenced in his column often do not reflect their intended consequences: “Most official reviews now come to the conclusion that the programs, hastily conceived in the rush to attract the newly wealthy citizens of Russia, China and other countries, are too cheap with few benefits for the host countries.”
Read “The other immigrants: how the super-rich skirt quotas and closed borders.“
Tags: CAHSS, PublicPolicy
