Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development

Article Title

"The (New) New Colossus": Amending the Investor Visa Program to Comport with the Mandate of the United States' Immigration Policy and Benefit U.S. Workers

Authors

Brendan Lee

Abstract

(Excerpt)

Part I of this Note will examine the failure of the INA, focusing on the de facto quota system implemented in place of the explicit national origins quota system. Further, it will show how the Immigration Act of 1990 failed to address this problem. Part II of this Note will look specifically at the EB-5 Investor Visa Program created by the Immigration Act of 1990. This part will explore the practical usage and advantages conferred to those who participate in the program. In addition, this part will analyze how these advantages give rise to disparate effects among prospective immigrants of differing economic means and thus run afoul of the INA’s mandate for admission based on “fair, rational, [and] humane” considerations. Part III of this Note turns to the twin purpose of the EB-5 Investor Visa Program itself: first, to attract the investment of foreign capital in the United States, and second, to promote the creation of U.S. jobs. This part of the Note will examine the changes Congress made to the EB-5 Investor Visa Program through the legislation of the Investor Visa Pilot Program and how that program further favors the goal of attracting capital investment at the cost of actual job creation. Part IV of this Note examines how other provisions of the overall EB-5 program also favor the goal of attracting capital investment at the expense of actual job creation. Part V of this note proposes a new immigrant visa preference category: the EB-7 Immigrant Job Creator Visa Program, which is designed to provide relief to immigrants subject to the more onerous de facto quotas imposes by the INA and carried through by the Immigration Act of 1990 while at the same time overhauling the EB-5 Investor Visa Program to comport with the overarching policy goals set forth in the INA as well as the policy goals of the program itself.

Finally, Part VI will illustrate how the proposed EB-7 Immigrant Job Creator Visa Program will harmonize the United States’ immigration law with the overarching policy goals of the INA.

Comments

Second Place Winner: 2015 JCRED Best Notes Award