Economy
America's Booming Pay-to-Stay Visa Program Still Has Tons of Room to Grow
A once-obscure program that provides permanent resident status in exchange for foreign investment in troubled places is starting to pay dividends in some U.S. cities.
Give us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free. But remember: We also take plastic.
That's the message that Congress registered when it passed the Immigration Act of 1990, which added a brand new category of employment-based visas for permanent legal residents—specifically, a visa tailor-made for investors. Although applications are on the rise, the program remains somewhat under the radar. Which is a shame. The EB-5 investor visa program works like a sort of global Kickstarter, one whose promise for U.S. cities is both enormous and untapped.