It’s a racket, plain and simple. Two related news items of note. First:
Deputy Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas tainted the image and integrity of the immigration program he oversaw by fostering “an appearance of favoritism and special access” in how the agency treated projects that would bring visas and Green Cards to wealthy foreign investors, a new report from the agency’s Inspector General says.
“The juxtaposition of Mr. Mayorkas’ communication with external stakeholders on specific matters outside the normal procedures, coupled with favorable action that deviated from the regulatory scheme designed to ensure fairness and evenhandedness in adjudicating benefits, created an appearance of favoritism and special access,” the Inspector General’s report concluded.
The DHS IG report specifically focused on allegations of special treatment afforded to a Las Vegas casino project championed by Sen. Harry Reid, then the Senate majority leader, and an electric car enterprise led by Terry McAuliffe, who is now Virginia governor, and involving Anthony Rodham, the brother of then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
And second: did somebody say Terry McAuliffe?
Not long before he became governor of Virginia, Democrat Terry McAuliffe received special treatment on behalf of his electric-car company from a top official at the Department of Homeland Security, according to a new report from the department’s inspector general.
McAuliffe was among several politically powerful individuals from both parties, including Sen. Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.), seeking special visas for foreign investors through a program administered by the department. But intervention on behalf of McAuliffe’s GreenTech Automotive company by Alejandro Mayorkas, now the department’s No. 2 official, “was unprecedented,” according to the report.
The long-anticipated report found no evidence of law-breaking. But members of the department’s staff perceived Mayorkas’s actions as “politically motivated,” and the report concluded that he had “created an appearance of favoritism and special access.”
“No evidence of law-breaking.” Ha ha ha ha! Of course not: that’s how these people, the Clintons and the Obamas, roll: right up to the edge and hope nobody notices that, every once in a while, they might put a foot over. At root is something called the EB-5 Visa program:
The report is likely to stir up renewed scrutiny of the department’s management of the EB-5 visa program, which allows foreign nationals who create jobs in the United States to obtain green cards. And it is likely to rekindle examination of McAuliffe and GreenTech, which at the time of Mayorkas’s actions was under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission over its conduct in soliciting foreign investors. Initially popular with lawmakers from both parties, the visa program has prompted accusations from detractors that it puts visas up for sale — and doesn’t provide sufficient oversight to ensure that the promised jobs materialize.
How about that! What the program is, of course, is another opportunity for graft and corruption, something Democrats in particular have been specializing in for more than a century at the big-city, state and federal level. And nobody gives a damn; this report will be filed and forgotten, and the rich will get richer… thanks to the federal government and its extra-constitutional functions.
Who will finally stop this?
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