Immigration security

Program That Lets Foreigners Write a Check, and Get a Visa, Draws Scrutiny

The easiest way to gain entry into the United States is not to walk across the border in the dead of night. It is to write a check.

A visa process enacted by Congress in 1990 to create jobs and pump billions of dollars into the economy has evolved into a program that federal investigators and some prominent lawmakers say has become a risk to national security and an easy mark for abuse, particularly from China.

The program, called EB-5, allows wealthy foreign investors, for a price ranging from $500,000 to more than $1 million, to put themselves on a path to United States citizenship. The money must be used to finance a business in this country and eventually employ — directly or indirectly — at least 10 American workers in economically depressed areas.