OPINION:
President Trump’s battle to get America’s borders under control is going extremely well. The percentage of illegal immigrants in the workforce has already plunged, border crossings are minuscule, and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids have become the stuff of pop culture legend. As a nation, we’ve finally rediscovered the idea that we get to choose who comes into our nation. They don’t get to choose for us.
We must also ask an exciting and sobering question: How should we choose? Mr. Trump has had great success in enforcing our laws against illegal immigration. Are there comparable parts of immigration law he can expand or use as a model for our system?
Personally, I want us to drain the brainpower of every nation on earth. Get the smartest, most entrepreneurial people to America, and soon we won’t just outthink everyone but outproduce them as well. The titan industries of the future must come from America. Only then will we have the leverage to ensure the global marketplace runs according to American principles of freedom and openness. We can no longer afford to let in criminals, menial laborers and duds. We have to be selective. We have to be smart.
One visa program manages to be both: the EB-5 program, aka the Immigrant Investor Program. When they say “investor,” they mean investor. You can’t get an EB-5 visa without first offering to invest at least $800,000 in the American economy and promising to preserve and/or create at least 10 full-time jobs for Americans.
It works. In fact, it overperforms relative to the requirements. From 2016 to 2019, EB-5 created 1.7 million American jobs, generated $75 billion in revenue, created $122 billion in wages for American citizens, and contributed $184 billion to gross domestic product. Every EB-5 investor created, on average, 45 American jobs. Every $500,000 investment the program took in generated an additional $1.6 million in private investment.
Taxpayers, meanwhile, paid nothing. In fact, the program generated $14.5 billion in revenue. You would have an easier time getting St. Thomas Aquinas to subscribe to an OnlyFans model than finding a U.S. immigration program with those results.
The requirements are set to get steeper with time. In January 2027, the minimum investment required to obtain an EB-5 visa will go up in line with what consumers pay for goods and services. In other words, this isn’t a policy that inflation will make it easy for people to game down the road. It will always be at least this hard to get an EB-5. At least.
Again, compare this with other U.S. immigration programs, particularly the now-infamous H-1B visa program. Just in case you’ve forgotten, the H-1B program was the center of a minor social media civil war between the more populist members of MAGA and its Tech Right allies, such as Vivek Ramaswamy and Elon Musk, over whether letting in “high-skilled” immigrants was contrary to the Trump movement’s ethos.
In fact, the battle was based on false premises. Only the most bottom-of-the-barrel nativist opposes letting in truly high-skilled people. That’s why we have the EB-5 and O-1 (the “exceptional individual”) visas. Yet H-1B’s requirements are so pathetically lax that any employer looking to cut corners and grow their profit margins can devise ways to cheat.
Small wonder, then, that H-1B is now on the chopping block for the Trump administration while EB-5 remains safe. That’s right: Of all the immigration programs we have, this is the one Mr. Trump is keeping. Because he is all for smart immigration. It’s just that “smart” is the opposite of what our system has been for years.
Here’s the bottom line: There was a time when immigrants who entered America gave back more than they took by starting businesses, contributing to society, and enriching their neighbors’ lives and pocketbooks.
That still happens sometimes, but after years of dealing with millions of illegal immigrants draining the welfare rolls, driving down wages and endangering our communities, it’s understandable that Americans have become cynical about immigration in general. That’s why we need to restore an American immigration system built on the principles of EB-5, prioritizing proven investment, creation rather than destruction of jobs, and the growth of wealth.
EB-5’s approach is the right way to come to America. It’s the best way to ensure that immigration is a weapon, not a weakness, in the battle to make America great again.
• Arynne Wexler is a political commentator and comedian. She can be found on social media @ArynneWexler.
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