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Throughout
the campaign process, both candidates have spent much of their time
speaking on their ideas and plans to “fix” the struggling US
economy. With growth at a lower than needed pace and unemployment
hovering around eight percent, people are looking everywhere for
solutions. One economist believes he has a solution, and it’s not
what many people might expect.
Charles Kenny, a
fellow at the Center for Global Development and the New America
Foundation, believes that what the country needs is immigration
reform, and he believes it needs it urgently. He believes that
current US policies are unfriendly to immigrant workers, and are
adversely affecting industries with high numbers of immigrant
workers, such as agriculture and technology. Specifically, he
believes that the limit on the number of H-1B visas for “specialty”
occupations needs to be increased, and that the US needs to make it
easier for foreign students graduating from US universities to stay
in the country upon graduation. He also believes that the EB-5 visa
program is in need of reform to increase the number of immigrants
taking advantage of it.
The
EB-5 visa program was created by Congress as a means to stimulate the
American economy, promote job growth and attract capital investment
by wealthy immigrant investors. The program grants US visas to
foreign entrepreneurs and their dependents in exchange for a
considerable investment in a US enterprise. The investor must invest
either $500,000 in a business located within a targeted employment
area (TEA), a rural or high unemployment area, or in any desired
location in the US. The investment must create or preserve ten
full-time jobs for US workers within two years.
The
EB-5
program, named that because it is the fifth category of
employment based visas issued by United States Citizenship and
Immigration Services, is estimated to have created about 34,000 jobs
over the life of the program. That number looks to be rising
rapidly, as the program is now more popular than ever. The number of
applicants for the EB-5 Visa has risen from 1,000 in 2009, to 2,000
in 2010, to over 3,000 in 2011. But Kenny thinks it can be even
higher.
Kenny claims that the job creation requirement of the program as it stands leaves the visa holders open to deportation if the jobs that their investment creates are not created in the exact way that was predicted in their application. He believes the process is simply too rigid, and that this rigidity is why only 13,719 people applied between 2000 and 2010 and of these, only 3,127 were granted a US residence permit or green card. With some reforms, perhaps the number of applicants and green cards granted under the EB-5 program will go up, and with each successful applicant comes a large capital infusion into the US economy and 10 new permanent jobs for US workers. With the EB-5 program, it truly is “the more, the merrier.”
Kenny claims that the job creation requirement of the program as it stands leaves the visa holders open to deportation if the jobs that their investment creates are not created in the exact way that was predicted in their application. He believes the process is simply too rigid, and that this rigidity is why only 13,719 people applied between 2000 and 2010 and of these, only 3,127 were granted a US residence permit or green card. With some reforms, perhaps the number of applicants and green cards granted under the EB-5 program will go up, and with each successful applicant comes a large capital infusion into the US economy and 10 new permanent jobs for US workers. With the EB-5 program, it truly is “the more, the merrier.”
