https://cis.org/North/Minimum-EB5-Investment-900000-450000-Can-Be-Borrowed
About a year ago — after waiting a quarter of a century to do so — the government increased the minimum investment in the EB-5 program from $500,000 to $900,000.
The EB-5 program gives conditional green cards to the alien families that have made such investments in projects approved by, but not guaranteed by, the Department of Homeland Security. Historically, most of the investments have been made by nervous Chinese people worried about their prospects in that country and wanting a set of additional passports.
Now a California firm is offering the same deal to alien investors — except one only has to put up $450,000 (i.e., less than the old minimum), and can borrow the other $450,000. The offer appears on their website and presumably would not be there without at least tacit DHS approval.
Allowing aliens to buy their way into the country is questionable enough; to open our doors to those who have borrowed part of the admissions price is more so.
The offer, by Playa Vista Equities (PLE) is intended to generate investments in a housing project called Merced Station, in the town (and county) of Merced, in California's Central Valley. Merced is a farm town; the development is supposed to provide housing for students at the University of California, Merced. It is the newest of the university's campuses.