Senator Bob Casey (D-PA) received $5,000 from a political action committee that supports the EB-5 Immigrant Investor Program, which grants permanent residence visas to wealthy foreign nationals who make significant investments in the United States.
Documents submitted by the Immigrant Investors Association/Invest in the USA (IIUSA) PAC to the Federal Election Commission (FEC) confirm that the organization gave Casey $5,000 on June 13. Records additionally reveal that Casey is the only U.S. Senate candidate who received such a contribution.
The IIUSA PAC website explains it was founded in 2005 as the nonprofit trade association for the EB-5 visa program. Its vision is to make the program “a sustainable and critical thread to US economic development.”
Prior to the Trump administration, the smallest investment necessary for a foreign national to receive an EB-5 visa was $500,000, but former President Donald Trump’s Department of Homeland Security issued guidance in 2019 that raised the minimum investment to $900,000, keeping foreign capital from landing in prosperous areas of New York and other states.
Despite President Joe Biden reversing much of Trump’s immigration agenda during his term, the Biden administration endorsed the EB-5 changes. The Department of Justice defended the Trump-era guidance before a panel of judges in 2021.
The Biden administration’s arguments were ultimately unpersuasive, and in June 2021, the judges struck down the rules because of actions taken during the Trump administration.
Less than a year later, Casey was among the 68 senators who voted in favor of accepting the amended version of the U.S. House omnibus bill passed in 2022. This bill reestablished the EB-5 visa program based on legislation originally submitted by Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Rep. Greg Stanton (D-AZ-04).
Biden signed the legislation into law, effectively increasing the investment minimum to $800,000, closer to the figure originally accomplished under Trump.
Chinese nationals often use the EB-5 visa program to live and invest in the United States, including the country’s real estate investors, who previously used the program to pour over $1 billion into the Hudson Yards in New York and to purchase the Fairfield Lake State Park in Texas.
A 2020 report by a now-offline immigration industry website, EB-5 Daily, reported that wealthy individuals and families from China, Vietnam, and India are among those who were waiting the longest to be accepted into the program.
Last August, The Wall Street Journal reported the revamped program remains attractive to “wealthy Chinese seeking a way out of their country.”
The Pennsylvania Daily Star contacted the Casey campaign to ask whether the senator supported the changes made under the Trump administration and whether he would like to see the EB-5 visa program expanded further, but The Daily Star did not receive an immediate response.
Republican U.S. Senate nominee Dave McCormick posted on the social media platform X that the group’s donation to Casey was connected to the wider immigration crisis.
“While there’s a massive influx of Chinese nationals at the southern border, Bob Casey is taking money from a group that fast-tracks MORE Chinese nationals into the country,” wrote McCormick in response to reporting about the donation by The New York Post.
This is not the first time China has impacted the Pennsylvania race for the U.S. Senate. The Casey campaign recently highlighted McCormick’s investments in a fund that owns shares of a Chinese fentanyl manufacturer. Evidence then surfaced, revealing Casey is invested in the same fund.
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Tom Pappert is the lead reporter for The Tennessee Star, and also reports for The Pennsylvania Daily Star and The Arizona Sun Times. Follow Tom on X/Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Bob Casey” by Bob Casey.
