Bloomberg quoted Can-Reach , a Beijing-based agency that enables applications for EB-5 visas as saying that some clients want to ensure applications happen before April 28, the date the program will end unless it is extended or changed by Congress.

Wealthy Chinese citizens have been among the most enthusiastic applicants for the EB-5 program, a form of “golden visa” system used by a number of jurisdictions to bring in high net worth individuals. Countries operating such “citizenship-by-investment” schemes include Malta, the UK, Spain and Portugal. Canada and Hong Kong put their systems on hold in recent years. These program can be controversial, raising concerns that the wealthy are fast-tracked into getting passports at the expense of less affluent groups. Also, as immigration has become a hot-potato issue with the rise of political populism, pressure to review these programs has intensified. In the UK, the minimum investment sum required for a Tier 1 visa was hiked to £2 million from £1 million, and it has been cited as a reason for a fall-off in applications.

The Bloomberg report noted that the sensitivities around the EB-5 system go to the White House, because the programme channels money to large US property projects across the country, including those of Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and senior advisor.

The report said that if the program is curtailed, it could hit a process that is said to have helped create at least 200,000 US jobs and brought in up to $14 billion from Chinese investors.

As this publication noted some time ago, there is the seemingly incongruous fact that while China’s economy has been relatively strong in recent years , there has been a notable trend of HNW Chinese individuals trying to get a second passport, or emigrate completely. Shanghai’s Hurun Research Institute noted three years ago that some 64 per cent of high net worth individuals whom it surveyed were either emigrating or wanted to do so. 

In recent years there has been discontent about alleged abuses of the US system. Two years ago it was reported that the desire for Chinese persons to acquire foreign nationality has led to problems. 

Chinese investors, numbering several thousand annually, are reported by Bloomberg to account for as much as 85 percent of the annual EB-5 investor total. It added that about 900 firms in China are registered to handle emigration, and most of them offer EB-5 services.