Julissa Reynoso – who would serve as Jill Biden’s Chief of Staff in a Biden administration – is list as an advisory board member for a firm selling U.S. citizenship via the EB5 Visa program, The National Pulse can reveal.
Reynoso is currently listed on the Advisory Board of ‘EB5 Visa Funds‘, where her previous positions of U.S. Ambassador to Uruguay and Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Central American, Caribbean and Cuban Affairs in the Obama administration are prominently displayed.
Reynoso omits her visa work from her bio with her current employer, law firm Winston & Strawn. Her bio does, however, reveal her stint as a Soros Fellow for ‘New Americans’ – a program which hands almost $100,000 to a handful of immigrants each year.
‘PAY-FOR-CITIZENSHIP’
Leveraging her Obama-era credentials, the first three sentences in the Chief of Staff to Jill Biden’s biography reads:
Julissa has extensive policy and legal experience, engaging both as a lawyer in private practice and as a senior diplomat on behalf of the United States Government. Julissa Reynoso is the former United States Ambassador to Uruguay. Julissa also served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Central American, Caribbean and Cuban Affairs in the US Department of State.
EB5 Visa Funds’ homepage insists the firm can secure “your path to u.s. citizenship through profitable investment.”
The firm also boasts of having “program advantages to securing Green Cards” such as ensuring the investor “does not have to be continuously present in the U.S., and can maintain business and professional relations in their own country” and that there are “no requirements regarding age, business experience or language skills”:
- There are no requirements regarding age, business experience or language skills.
- The program does not require investors to manage their investment on a daily basis.
- As a limited partner, an investor is free to pursue other professional or personal ventures.
- An investor does not have to be continuously present in the U.S., and can maintain business and professional relations in their own country.
- An investor does not have to live in the city or state where their EB-5 investment is located.
The phone number listed on the page directs callers to General American Capital Partners, a Florida-based private equity firm founded by Joseph DaGrosa Jr. and David Neithardt.
The former, along with ex Democratic Mayor of Miami Manny Diaz, is listed on the advisory board of the firm and appears to have an EB5 Visa corporation registered under his name.
‘SCANDAL & FRAUD’
The EB5 Visa program has been slammed by conservative critics as having “long been plagued by scandal and fraud, and has been criticized as effectively functioning as a pay-for-citizenship scheme in many cases.” Even Democratic Senators have sponsored legislation to end the visa type, with Senator Dianne Feinstein calling it “inherently flawed.”
“It says that U.S. citizenship is for sale. It is wrong to have a special pathway to citizenship for the wealthy while millions wait in line for visas,” the California Democrat added.
A Florida-based businessman pleaded guilty to a “plan to build a biotechnology plant in Newport, Vermont, using millions raised through the EB-5 visa program.”
Another flag with the program is how the overwhelming majority – over 80 percent – of visas go to Chinese nationals – often with ties to the Chinese Communist Party.
As Representatives Jim Jordan and Guy Reschenthaler of the House Judiciary Committee noted, “Although the EB-5 program’s goal of stimulating capital investment and job creation in the United States is laudable, it has become clear in recent years that the CCP may be abusing the program to gain access to U.S. permanent residency for their members.”
The National Pulse has reached out to Julissa and EB5 Visa Funds, via EB5 Visa Funds, but received no comment or response at the time of publication.
