Citizenship-by-Investment

Talk about a double standard…

The US is quick to point fingers, yet hardly ever enforces its rules at home.

As I write this, the US is gripped by a domestic immigration scandal that dwarfs any reproach they’ve cast on others. It’s clear the standards it demands in countries with CBI (citizenship-by-investment) programs are much stricter than those it enforces at home.

In 2014, the US Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN warned banks that the Federation of St. Kitts & Nevis (SKN) CBI program had been hijacked by “illicit actors.” They accused the Federation of issuing passports to Iranian citizens labeled “specially designated nationals” by the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC).Don’t get me wrong. I’m not attacking the EB-5 program – far from it. Every nation has a right to grant incentives to highly qualified or wealthy applicants, and Congress has chosen this way to do it. What I object to is the double standard the US applies to CBI programs.

Personally, I’d replace the EB-5 program with an auction-based system and let prospective immigrants bid for the right to live and work in the US. I suspect the winning bids would far exceed $500,000. While I suspect this idea might make Donald Trump smile, I don’t think most Americans would support it. It would, after all, be selling US citizenship.

But of course, that’s exactly what the EB-5 program is all about. It takes a little longer than a CBI program, but after five years, a green card holder living in the US can apply for citizenship and get a US passport.

If nothing else, the EB-5 program and the abuses accompanying it prove the truth of the other “Golden Rule”: He who has the gold makes the rules. So, while the US Treasury can send out advisories criticizing potential abuses in Caribbean CBI programs, a very different set of rules applies at home.

Keep that in mind next time you read an article in the US press criticizing abuses or unfairness in another country’s CBI program. The Golden Rule, along with the double standard, is alive and well.

Reprinted with permission from Nestmann.com.

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