An adviser for a company that connects wealthy individuals with foreign visas says he has seen an influx in liberal customers looking to flee the country over "lunatic Christian fundamentalists and good old boys from the South" coming to greater political influence in the U.S.
E-2 Visa Solutions founder Marc Hyman, whose business provides consulting and advisory services for clients looking to obtain visas to countries like Turkey and Grenada, told The Daily Beast he has seen more clients looking to secure dual citizenship as a means to escape political strife at home, particularly regarding concerns over abortion rights and the potential return of former President Donald Trump. Others are simply concerned about the political environment in the U.S., including the increasing threat of violence.
"A lot of people have a second citizenship as a Get Out of Jail Free card or as a life raft in case America becomes unlivable...and, you know, the shrimp is no longer cold in the Hamptons," Hyman told the website.
The comments came as part of a longer report about the purchase of E-2 visas among the U.S. elite, which can be obtained for significant sums via the private sector. The practice, commonly referred to as "residency by investment," is employed by many countries to lure foreign investment either by large property purchases, the creation of businesses that employ a certain number of locals, or by large infusions of cash into the country's economy.
The trafficking of these "golden visas" has opened the door for a cottage industry of lawyers who translate large sums of money into dual citizenship for those with means, often in countries with unique trade relationships with the U.S. or with lax provisions for citizenship. Notable examples include nations like Greece, Ireland and Spain alongside notable tax havens like Switzerland, Grenada and the Cayman Islands, all places favored by the ultra-wealthy for the financial advantages they provide.
But citizenship isn't cheap either. While one can get on the path to citizenship in Malta for as low as 98,000 euros, countries like Austria allow just 300 of these "golden visas" annually, and for sums as high as 3 million U.S. dollars.
Even then, recipients of E-2 visas, like in the U.S., may need to be able to prove that they're having a tangible economic benefit in the country. Others are much simpler. Grenada's program, for example, allows prospective citizens to invest in a number of real estate projects like luxury hotels, or in places like the Caribbean island of St. Kitts, its sustainable growth fund, which channels resources to priority areas like education, health, climate change resilience and infrastructure spending.
The number who ultimately do choose to move abroad, however, is likely very small. While Gallup polling from 2019 showed 16 percent of Americans would like to leave the country, the Association of Americans Resident Overseas estimated in 2016 that just under 9 million have elected to do so, a number equivalent to less than 3 percent of the current U.S. population.
Uncommon Knowledge
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
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Nick Reynolds is a senior politics reporter at Newsweek. A native of Central New York, he previously worked as a ... Read more
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