GOP bill lets foreigners buy US citizenship for $1 million
by Pete Kasperowicz | May 26, 2017, 4:37 PM
Two House Republicans are proposing scrapping the diversity visa lottery program, and replacing it with a new plan to sell visas for as much as $1 million, and then using the proceeds to fund border security efforts.
Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., proposed the plan in a new bill that's cosponsored by Rep. John Carter, R-Texas.
Many Republicans oppose the diversity visa lottery program, and some have said it should be replaced with a program aimed at giving skilled workers a preference when it comes to visas. Rohrabacher's bill focuses more on the idea of using the visas to generate border security funds.
"This bill would eliminate the currently existing and highly controversial diversity visa lottery program (which currently allocates 55,000 visas annually), and replace it with a new program whereby an individual who pays a $1 million fee to the U.S. government ($500,000 for dependent children) will be granted a visa for permanent residence," Rohrabacher wrote to his House colleagues this week.
"Furthermore, the individual would be granted citizenship within two years of the transaction," he said. "Importantly, the legislation would require that such visa and citizenship seekers meet the same admissibility and vetting requirements that pertain to all other visa and citizenship seekers."
Under his bill, the money collected would be placed into a "border security and immigration enforcement account, to be controlled by the Secretary of Homeland Security."
The money would fund activities by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and Customs and Border Protection.
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/go...rticle/2624280