Category: News

The past four years have seen a steep reduction in immigration. But the country is becoming ever more diverse.

To grasp the impact of the latest great wave of immigration to the United States, consider the city of Grand Island, Neb.: More than 60 percent of public school students are nonwhite, and their families collectively speak 55 languages. During drop-off at Starr Elementary on a recent morning, parents bid their children goodbye in Spanish, Somali and Vietnamese.

“You wouldn’t expect to see so many languages spoken in a school district of 10,000,” said Tawana Grover, the school superintendent who arrived from Dallas four years ago. “When you hear Nebraska, you don’t think diversity. We’ve got the world right here in rural America.”

The students are the children of foreign-born workers who flocked to this city of 51,000 in the 1990s and 2000s to toil in the area’s meatpacking plants, where speaking English was less necessary than a willingness to do the grueling work.

They came to Nebraska from every corner of the globe: Mexicans, Guatemalans and Hondurans who floated across the Rio Grande on inner tubes, in search of a better life; refugees who fled famine in South Sudan and war in Iraq to find safe haven; Salvadorans and Cambodians who spent years scratching for work in California and heard that jobs in Nebraska were plentiful and the cost of living low.

The story of how millions of immigrants since the 1970s have put down lasting roots across the country is by now well-known. What is less understood about President Trump’s four-year-long push to shut the borders and put “America First” is that his quest may prove ultimately a futile one. Even with one of the most severe declines in immigration since the 1920s, the country is on an irreversible course to becoming ever more diverse, and more dependent on immigrants and their children.

The president since the moment he took office issued a torrent of orders that reduced refugee admissions; narrowed who is eligible for asylum; made it more difficult to qualify for permanent residency or citizenship; tightened scrutiny of applicants for high-skilled worker visas; and sought to limit the length of stay for international students. His policies slashed the number of migrants arrested and then released into the country from nearly 500,000 in the 2019 fiscal year to 15,000 in the 2020 fiscal year.

The measures worked: “We are going to end the decade with lower immigration than in any decade since the ’70s,” said William Frey, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, who analyzed newly available census data.

President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. has pledged to reverse many of the measures. He has vowed to reinstate Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, known as DACA, an Obama-era program that allowed young adults mainly brought to the United States illegally as children to remain, and to resume accepting refugees and asylum seekers in larger numbers.

He has also said he would introduce legislation to offer a path to citizenship for people in the country illegally.

Yet immigration remains a flash point for Americans, millions of whom have supported Mr. Trump’s clampdown, and pushing any substantial immigration reform through Congress will prove difficult as long as Republicans remain in control of the Senate.

And in any case, Mr. Trump’s immigration legacy cannot be unraveled overnight. While some of the executive orders and memorandums that helped close off the border can be rolled back swiftly, hundreds of technical but significant changes made to the immigration system will take much longer to undo.

But as Grand Island shows, nothing that Mr. Trump has done was able to halt the inexorable shifts unleashed by the biggest wave of immigration since the 1890s, when Southern and Eastern Europeans arrived in huge numbers through Ellis Island.

Even if immigration were to come to a standstill, their offspring would continue to reshape the country.

In 1992, 50 Hispanics were enrolled in Grand Island’s schools. By 2001, there were 1,600 out of about 7,600 students. Now, Latinos account for more than half of the 10,000 students in the district, and there is no forecast that does not show that proportion continuing to accelerate.

A surge in arrivals into the United States began in the 1970s, gathered strength in the 1980s and crested in the early 2000s. Millions of Latin Americans have come. There also has been spectacular growth in the number of Asians, who outnumbered foreign-born Hispanics between 2010 and 2019. The new immigrants are more likely than native-born Americans to have a college degree and are integrated into every level of the economy. This is even more true of their children.

In San Francisco, Vida Ahyong, 37, a U.S.-born daughter of Filipino immigrants, runs the Covid-19 diagnostic lab at the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub, overseeing a staff that includes younger Latino, African and Asian researchers who are also children of immigrants. One of them is Gloria Castañeda, 24, a Yale graduate, born in California to a janitor and a truck driver, both Mexican immigrants.

The family of Aslan Kat, 17, was granted asylum in the United States after escaping the civil war in Syria five years ago. He is the captain of the varsity soccer team at Wayne Hills High School in Wayne, N.J., and hopes to play in college, where he plans to study engineering. Among his teammates are immigrants from Armenia, Cuba and Egypt.

In 1920, the foreign-born accounted for 13.2 percent of the population. A backlash against Japanese, Southern Europeans and Jews, among others, resulted in national origin quotas adopted in 1924 that put an end to a large influx that had started in the late 1800s.

It would take until the 1970s for immigration to climb steadily again, after the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 eliminated quotas and created a system based on family relationships and work categories.

The foreign-born population grew by 5.6 million in the ’80s, 8.8 million in the ’90s and 11.3 million in the 2000s.

By the time Mr. Trump took office, this contemporary wave of immigration had lifted the foreign-born population to 44.5 million, representing 13.7 percent of the population, the biggest share since 1910. Among them were about 11 million undocumented immigrants.

During his first week in office, the president introduced a travel ban to halt the entry of people from many Muslim countries and paused refugee resettlement, citing terrorist threats.

As Central American migrants fleeing violence and poverty showed up at the border by the busload, his administration introduced policies to deter them, including the separation of migrant children from their parents.

He was able to do it by bypassing a Congress that has long been deadlocked on immigration reform, issuing a series of executive orders and proclamations that rapidly shut the door on immigration despite a flurry of legal challenges.

“Trump has demonstrably proven that you don’t need a grand deal to tackle immigration and border security,” said James Carafano of the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank.

Average net migration shrank by 45 percent between 2017 and 2019 from an average of 953,000 during the previous seven years, as fewer immigrants arrived and more left, according to a Center for Immigration Studies analysis of census data.

There will be an even more precipitous decline recorded by the close of 2020 following visa restrictions imposed by the president amid the coronavirus pandemic.

“This year is truly unprecedented in how dramatic and fast this decline in immigration has been,” said David Bier, an immigration analyst at the libertarian Cato Institute. “Outside of wars and the Great Depression, we have never seen a level of immigration like we are seeing right now.”

Mr. Trump put much of the focus on disparaging refugees and immigrants as drains on public coffers and championing a wall on the southwestern border.

Yet all the attention on the border ignored the much more significant growth in immigration that was happening elsewhere in the country.

The number of immigrants of Asian origin grew by 2.8 million in the nine years ending 2019, more than from any other region. The biggest gains were among Indians and Chinese; the number of Mexicans dropped by 779,000.

Many of the recent immigrants have settled in parts of the country where there is a low concentration of foreign-born people, including in states that voted for Mr. Trump in both 2016 and 2020.

Among them are Shikha Jaiswal, a nephrologist, and her husband, Nihit Gupta, a child and adolescent psychiatrist, who came to the United States from India to complete their residencies and are building their careers in a medically underserved area of West Virginia.

Small-town America has come to rely on a pipeline of foreign doctors. “People have been very kind and grateful at the same time, making it a very rewarding experience,” Dr. Jaiswal said.

The children of immigrants who are already here will continue to make the United States more diverse: The 2020 census is expected to show that more than half of people under 18 are people of color.

“The mainstream now increasingly includes people who are nonwhite, particularly from immigrant backgrounds,” said Richard Alba, a sociology professor at the City University of New York Graduate Center.

The movement of the baby boom generation out of the labor force amid a plummeting birthrate is accelerating the trend and intensifying the need for new immigrant labor to pay the Social Security and Medicare bills for retiring Americans.

“It’s not that native-born kids can’t take the boomers’ jobs; it’s that there are not enough of these kids to take them,” said Dowell Myers, a demographer at the University of Southern California who researches the subject.

That diversity is already being reflected in the higher rungs of the work force.

For much of the second half of the 20th century, white workers held a virtual monopoly on the best-paying positions. But by 2015, among top-earning workers under 50, about a third were nonwhite, mainly Latinos or Asians of immigrant origin, according to research by Mr. Alba, who predicts that their share will only grow.

A study released last month found that nearly 30 percent of all students enrolled in colleges and universities in 2018 hailed from immigrant families, up from 20 percent in 2000.

“When you start having cohorts of college graduates that are so diverse, it’s going to change the work force, which means more people from diverse backgrounds moving into positions of authority and high remuneration,” Mr. Alba said. “There’s no going back.”

Source: nytimes.com
Published: 9 November 2020

Joe Biden is the next president of the United States. Unless Democrats win two runoff elections in Georgia, Biden may not have a Democratic majority in the Senate, making ambitious immigration legislation more challenging. Despite that, Joe Biden will have an opportunity to enact significant changes to U.S. immigration policy.

Legal Immigration: By 2021, Donald Trump will have reduced legal immigration by up to 49% since becoming president – without any change in U.S. immigration law, according to a National Foundation for American Policy (NFAP) analysis.  Reducing legal immigration most harms refugees, employers and Americans who want to live with their spouses, parents or children, but it also affects the country’s future labor force and economic growth: “Average annual labor force growth, a key component of the nation’s economic growth, will be approximately 59% lower as a result of the administration’s immigration policies, if the policies continue,” according to the NFAP analysis. Reversing these policies could be a vital part of the Biden immigration agenda.

High-Skilled Immigration: If the Biden administration understands only one thing about business immigration, it should be this: H-1B visas are inextricably linked with the ability of highly educated people to become employment-based immigrants and eventually American citizens. Restrictions on H-1B visas can prevent the next potential founder of a billion-dollar company from gaining a green card and certainly will hurt international students. In addition to academic research that shows imposing H-1B restrictions push more jobs outside the United States, the country’s future can be affected in other ways: 75% – 30 out of 40 – of the finalists of the 2016 Intel Science Talent Search had parents who worked in America on H-1B visas.

Legislative reforms could make it easier for individuals to gain permanent residence without an H-1B, but until that happens (if it ever does), an H-1B will remain the only practical way for many people to work long-term in the United States, including international students. Approximately 75% to 80% of fulltime graduate students in key technology fields at U.S. universities are international students.

H-1B visa holders understand that H-1B status is part of the American Dream for many outstanding future immigrants, which is why Stephen Miller, the chief architect of the Trump administration’s immigration policies, focused so much energy on restricting H-1B visas.

The Trump administration did not pursue “merit-based” immigration. “Denial rates for new H-1B petitions for initial employment rose from 6% in FY 2015 to 29% through the second quarter of FY 2020,” according to a National Foundation for American Policy analysis. An April 2020 proclamation blocked the entry of legal immigrants to the United States in nearly all categories, including employment-based immigrants. Before a judge issued a preliminary injunction against it in October, a June 2020 proclamation suspended the entry of foreign nationals on H-1B, L-1 and certain other temporary visas.

In October 2020, the Trump administration issued three new regulations that would profoundly change – and broadly restrict – H-1B visas:

–       The Department of Labor’s (DOL) rule that inflates salaries for H-1B visa holders and employment-based immigrants.

–       The Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) H-1B rule that changes the definition of a specialty occupation and seeks to codify restrictions against companies whose H-1B employees conduct work at customer locations.

–        A rule to eliminate the H-1B lottery and replace it with a highest-to-lowest salary system likely to shut out international students and younger information technology (IT) professionals.

Legal challenges to the regulations may tell much of the story of the Trump administration’s legacy on H-1B visa policy. Companies will be relieved if a Biden administration returns U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) policies to those of the Obama administration. There is a reasonable chance that will happen.

USCIS and State Department Processing: “One barrier that will be hardest to break is the enormous backlog with both USCIS and State,” said Jeffrey Gorsky, senior counsel at Berry Appleman & Leiden and a former State Department attorney, in an interview. “While Biden is likely to shift resources from enforcement to adjudication, it may take a year or years to burn through the piles of unfinished work. For the State Department, once normal processing resumes, bearing in mind that some of this suspension is due to legitimate Covid-19-related concerns and not just immigration restrictions, it may increase the visa wait times by 6 months to a year.”

A priority at USCIS should be to rescind memos that have slowed processing, increased Requests for Evidence and made it more difficult to gain approval of previously-approved applications, such as the 2017 memo that no longer provided deference to previous adjudications. Putting the USCIS fiscal house in order will take a combination of a more reasonable fee rule, using the authority Congress provided for premium processing and a legislative funding or loan package.

Executive Orders, Proclamations and Regulations: Analysts believe if the Biden administration is smart, it will make a clean break from the Trump era by undoing all executive orders and proclamations on immigration that are not directly tied to health concerns related to Covid-19. That would include the most high-profile measures, such as the ban on the entry of individuals from primarily Muslim countries. Undoing the April 2020 immigration proclamation would allow immigrants in the family-sponsored and Diversity Visa categories to enter the United States, once State Department processing is normalized. Reversing regulations, most notably the public charge rule, may take more time and be influenced by court rulings.

H-4 EAD and Per-Country Limits: For years, the Trump administration has placed a proposed rule on the regulatory agenda to rescind an existing regulation that allows many spouses of H-1B visa holders to work – called H-4 EAD (employment authorization document). The administration could still attempt to take some restrictive action before Donald Trump leaves office.

A priority for the Biden administration should be to fix processing for H-4 EADs. In a recent lawsuit, plaintiffs argued H-1B spouses cannot renew their H-4 employment authorization documents because USCIS added an unnecessary biometrics requirement and adopted an erroneous interpretation of government regulations by prohibiting automatic extensions of H-4 work authorization.

Biden’s immigration policy document mentions eliminating the per-country limit for employment-based immigrants. Due to per-country limits, an employment-based green card applicant from India can potentially wait decades before gaining permanent residence. Legislation to address the problem passed the House of Representatives, but a series of demands by senators, the latest beings Senator Rick Scott (R-FL), first slowed then blocked the bill. It is unclear whether anything will change this Congress but if major immigration legislation moves next year, fixing the per-country limit is likely to be included. Another standalone bill may be possible as well.

DACA and Dreamers: Over the past four years, it took a great deal of legal activity, including a Supreme Court ruling, to protect the legal status of more than 600,000 recipients of the Obama administration’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. Joe Biden said protecting Dreamers will be a priority. How he protects them will matter.

Biden administration attorneys will need to decide if keeping the current program intact is the best approach legally or if a different administrative approach would work better. Continuing protections for DACA recipients is favored by a 2-to-1 margin among voters, according to poll results released by FWD.us. That does not mean a legislative solution will be easy, particularly one that goes beyond DACA recipients, which the Biden campaign has said he will pursue. Even if Democrats control the Senate at some point during the next four years, some compromise on the scope of a legislative solution (i.e., how many unauthorized immigrants, other immigration measures) is expected to be necessary for a bill to become law.

International Students: The Trump immigration team made it a priority to break the link between international students and their ability to work in the United States after graduation. The DOL and DHS H-1B rules, along with along with eliminating the H-1B lottery, would make it much more difficult for international students to work in America after completing their studies, say universities. “For students considering a degree abroad, 62% mentioned that being able to work in the country following the degree is very important,” according to a survey of international students by Studyportals.

The comment period ended last month on a significant proposed rule, opposed by U.S. universities, to limit the period of stay for international students. New enrollment of international students in the U.S. has fallen for years (while rising in other countries), and this rule would drop U.S. levels lower. Generating uncertainty as to whether students can complete their studies in the U.S. is a good way to ensure they won’t come to America in the first place. Research has found the proposed student rule is based on flawed DHS reports on student overstay rates. A Biden administration may need to decide what to do with this rule.

Refugees, Asylum and TPS: The first immigration challenge of the Biden presidency could be how to address asylum seekers at the southern border. Biden has pledged to end the process that has forced tens of thousands of asylum seekers to live in camps in Mexico. Ending the camps with an orderly process and providing a set of new procedures that will affect other asylum seekers may need to be accomplished quickly. The priority will be to ensure human rights and avoid scenes of overwhelmed Border Patrol agents. It would be a disaster if after campaigning against “kids in cages,” a shorthand reference to the Trump administration’s family separation policies, a Biden administration created anything remotely similar.

Biden officials should consider solutions that allow refugees to be interviewed outside the United States, including in their home countries, and develop solutions to enable individuals to work legally in the United States at jobs that do not require a high school degree, similar to, or even including, H-2B visas. Not everyone fleeing danger may qualify for asylum, but offering opportunities to earn a living in safety may be a desirable alternative, and it can take place in an orderly fashion.

The Biden administration is likely to pursue unraveling Trump administration rules and Bureau of Immigration Appeals decisions that restrict asylum. That includes a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) order that expels individuals before they are allowed to apply for asylum. Reforms to the system of immigration judges, including legislative reforms to make immigration courts independent, may be on the agenda.

Joe Biden’s immigration policy document states, “He will set the annual global refugee admissions cap to 125,000, and seek to raise it over time commensurate with our responsibility, our values, and the unprecedented global need.” Donald Trump reduced the annual refugee ceiling by over 86%, down to 15,000 in FY 2021, compared to 110,000 in the final year of the Obama administration. Biden has the authority to adjust the annual refugee ceiling after taking office, although rebuilding refugee processing and resettlement will take time.

“Order an immediate review of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for vulnerable populations who cannot find safety in their countries ripped apart by violence or disaster,” is cited in the Biden policy document. Biden mentioned TPS for Venezuelans during the campaign, but hundreds of thousands of individuals from other countries, primarily from Central America, have lived in the United States for years and seen their TPS status ended by the Trump administration. The document mentions including such individuals in a possible legislative solution.

Startup Visas: Startup visas is a modest, bipartisan legislative idea that could see renewed interest, given the need for job creation. It was part of an immigration bill that passed the U.S. Senate in 2013. The United States does not have a startup visa for foreign-born entrepreneurs. A National Foundation for American Policy report found the federal startup program in Canada has helped create jobs, as has a program run by the province of Quebec. The U.K, Australia and New Zealand also have startup visas. The Trump administration attempted to rescind a modest effort to allow foreign entrepreneurs to stay in the U.S. via parole.

A Difference in Tone: During the final days of his presidential campaign, Donald Trump warned people in Minnesota that Joe Biden would turn their state into a refugee camp. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) plastered the faces of dark-skinned immigrants on billboards in swing states. Building a wall to keep out foreigners remained one of the federal government’s top priorities. That will change in a Biden presidency: The ICE billboards will come down, and construction crews on the border wall will go home.

The difference between the two presidents’ rhetoric on immigrants and refugees should be night and day. “Generations of immigrants have come to this country with little more than the clothes on their backs, the hope in their heart, and a desire to claim their own piece of the American Dream,” reads the Biden immigration plan. “It’s the reason we have constantly been able to renew ourselves, to grow better and stronger as a nation, and to meet new challenges. Immigration is essential to who we are as a nation, our core values, and our aspirations for our future. Under a Biden Administration, we will never turn our backs on who we are or that which makes us uniquely and proudly American. The United States deserves an immigration policy that reflects our highest values as a nation.”

What will be the guiding principles of a Biden-Harris administration on immigration? Stephen Miller spearheaded the Trump administration’s immigration agenda, working tirelessly to move the United States as close as possible to a policy of zero immigration. The simplest rule Joe Biden and his team may follow on immigration policy would be to ask: What would Stephen Miller and Donald Trump do? And do the opposite.

Source: forbes.com
Published: 8 November 2020

On October 20, the European Commission launched an infringement procedure against Cyprus and Malta over so-called “golden passport” schemes, in which individuals can get a fast track to citizenship after investing between € 1 and 2.5 million in the countries’ economies.

This practice has been lucrative for both governments. Since 2013, Cyprus raised € 4.8 billion, amounting to 5% of its GDP, by selling thousands of passports to foreign investors. Malta gained about € 718 million in this manner in foreign direct investment since 2014.

This infringement procedure follows years of criticism by the Commission and other EU institutions, as well as media reporting on the abuse of these schemes. Luise Quaritsch answers our questions on this procedure.

Why does the European Commission consider the Cyprus and Malta policies illegal?

The Commission argues that golden passports violate EU law because these schemes, in essence, “sell” citizenship in exchange for a pre-determined payment or investment. This in turn undermines the integrity of the status of EU citizenship and is incompatible with the principle of sincere cooperation between the EU and member states.

In addition, journalists revealed that high-profile criminals were able to obtain Cypriot passports. The Commission argues that this represents a security threat for the EU as a whole, and increases the risk of money laundering, tax evasion and corruption.

Many countries have investment schemes to attract foreign investors. Why did the Commission single out Cyprus and Malta?

Cyprus and Malta are not the only countries that have put a price tag on their citizenship. The Commission also addressed Bulgaria when it started its infringement action against Cyprus and Malta. In a letter to the Bulgarian government, it stated its concerns over the country’s investor citizenship scheme and requested further information from Sofia.

The requirements for obtaining a golden passport from Bulgaria are largely the same as in Cyprus and Malta. However, the major difference appears to be the scale of the scheme: while Cyprus awarded almost 3000 citizenships between 2013 and 2017, Bulgaria granted only 16 between 2013 and 2018.

Bulgaria’s government now has one month to reply to the Commission’s letter. The Commission will then decide on next steps.

In addition to golden passport schemes, the Commission monitors residence investment schemes, also called “golden visas”. Under these schemes, individuals can obtain a residence permit in exchange for investments such as buying property. In a report published in 2019, the Commission criticised the schemes, which are especially popular in Spain, Hungary, Latvia and Portugal.

Individual countries are responsible for citizenship. Why is the Commission acting on this?

EU citizenship comes with an attractive set of rights, such as the right to move freely and work in any EU country. When countries like Cyprus and Malta grant their citizenship to third-country nationals, they simultaneously confer the rights of EU citizenship. This means that they are also de facto defining the rules to obtain EU citizenship.

The Commission argues that in Cyprus and Malta, the lax immigration requirements do not protect the Union’s interest. Without ensuring individuals applying for citizenship have a genuine connection to their countries – an internationally recognized legal standard for citizenship – they have been taking risks for the EU as a whole.

For example, many of the new owners of a Cypriot passport sought to evade criminal prosecution in their home countries. Mykola Zlochevsky, the owner of the Burisma energy company who is wanted in Ukraine, obtained his passport in 2017. At the time, he was already under investigation in Ukraine for corruption where he offered prosecutors a $ 6 million bribe in cash.

Not only were the lax requirements to “buy” citizenship in Cyprus and Malta legally and morally questionable, in practice, these schemes were also a harbour of corruption. Anyone willing to pay for it could get a passport with no difficulty. The most direct result of this is to give access to the EU to wealthy people evading criminal charges at home.

What are the next steps in the infringement procedure? 

A week before the Commission started the infringement procedure, Cyprus announced it would end the Cyprus Investment Programme on 1 November 2020. The country’s attorney general started a criminal investigation into the scheme and a few passports have already been revoked. However, both Cyprus and Malta made clear that they intend to continue these schemes in some form. With its infringement action, the Commission seeks to deter the two countries from merely replacing their current schemes.

Cyprus and Malta now have two months to respond to the Commission’s infringement action. After that, the Commission could decide to take the case to the European Court of Justice, the highest court of the EU. If the court finds the member state to be violating EU law, it can ultimately impose financial penalties.

Source: democracy-reporting.org
Published: 5 November 2020

In an IMI-exclusive interview, IMC-boss Bruno L’ecuyer explains how infringement procedures work, how common they are, and what they will mean for Malta and Cyprus.

Many are asking about the precise nature of so-called infringement procedures. What are they really, and what is their purpose?

L’ecuyer: The European Union (EU) is based on treaties and legislation endorsed by the 27 Member States. In turn, they must abide by the commonly agreed rules.

In case of breach of EU law, infringement procedures are the procedure by which the European Court of Justice (ECJ) can prosecute a contravening Member State. The ECJ, any Member State (against another Member State), or the European Commission can initiate such proceedings.

In practice, the European Commission is responsible for most infringement proceedings. As the guardian of the treaties and the executive branch of European legislation, the European Commission has the duty to monitor and investigate how and whether the Member States abide by EU rules.

The Commission can start the procedure based on its investigation or the complaints and petitions from the public (including NGOs, trade bodies, and businesses).

There are four types of infringements:

Failure to notify: a Member State does not notify the Commission in time about the transposition of EU law into national law;
Non-compliance: A Member State’s legislation does not comply with an EU Directive
Infringement: A Member State’s legislation is not in line with the requirements of the Treaties, the (directly applicable) EU regulations or decisions.
Incorrect application: a Member State does not apply correctly (or not at all) the EU law.
Crucially, the procedure is divided into two phases, pre-litigation and litigation. The pre-litigation phase opens a formal communication channel between the Commission and a national government. The aim is to reach consensus and find a timely solution. Thus, the Commission sends a letter of formal notice to the Member State with a deadline for a reply (usually two months). If the answer is not satisfactory, the Commission sends a reasoned opinion requiring the Member State to comply within a timeframe.

In case the Member State fails to comply when the deadline elapses, the litigation starts. The Commission files a petition against a Member State before the ECJ, who will then provide its legal opinion.

How have infringement procedures been used in the past, and to what effect?

L’ecuyer: Infringement procedures are common in the EU. Since 2015, the European Commission initiated an average of 777 new proceedings per year.

There is no policy realm or Member State that is immune to infringement procedures. In areas where the EU has more exclusive competence, such as environmental protection or the single market, the Commission tends to initiate more infringement proceedings.

Infringement procedures are effective in getting national governments to comply with EU law. In 2019, out of the 797 new infringement cases, 60% were resolved within two months (481). 316 cases gave way to a reasoned opinion and only 31 to litigation before the ECJ (5%).

To what degree is the outcome of such procedures binding?

L’ecuyer: Infringement procedures are legally binding and are based on the Treaty of the Functioning of the EU (Article 258 TFEU). Therefore, each EU country subscribed to this article and agreed to the superiority of the ECJ over the national courts, to become an EU Member State.

If, during the litigation phase, a Member State does not comply with the Court’s ruling, the Commission may refer the country to the Court for a second time. In this case, the Commission may also propose the Court to impose a financial penalty on the Member State. The Court could agree with the Commission and, depending on the type of infringement, the penalties could even be lump-sum per day for a specified period. In fact, in 2010 the Commission published a communication about the methodology of calculating the penalty payments.

In the vast majority of the cases, the Court rules in favour of the Commission. In 2019, for instance, ECJ issued twenty-five judgements with only two in favour of a Member State.

Nevertheless, the infringement cases are very complex legal proceedings. And as such, the Court considers some proceedings for many years (e.g. at the end of 2019, there were still 1,564 open cases). A public register of all active infringement cases is available on the Europa Portal.

What happens next in the case of Malta and Cyprus?

L’ecuyer: On 20 October, the European Commission sent a letter of formal notice to the governments of Malta and Cyprus. It thus started the pre-litigation phase of an infringement procedure. The Commission argues that each country’s citizenship by investment (CBI) programmes are incompatible with the treaties of the European Union.

Both Member States will have until 20 December (two months) to reply to the Commission. Based on their responses, the Commission will decide on whether to issue a reasoned opinion, i.e. a clear outline of the actions that the national governments need to take.

Both Member States announced that they would phase out or close down the CBI programmes. Malta had already planned the termination of the Individual Investor Programme (IIP) since it had reached the limit of 1,800 beneficiaries. Cyprus announced its decision to stop receiving new claims until it had addressed recent misconducts. While both governments will sovereignly decide on the best way forward, closing down the CBI programmes in their current form could end the infringement case proceedings.

What role, if any, will the IMC play in this process?

L’ecuyer: Infringement proceedings are an exclusive legal matter between the Commission and a national government. They concern breaches in national legislation or governance. The professionals that the IMC represent are not concerned by this case.

Meanwhile, initiating an infringement procedure against the Member States regarding their CBI programmes is a clear sign that investment migration (IM) is under threat in the European Union.

Up to now, the Commission has been looking at IM only through the lenses of the threat to the rule of law. Meanwhile, investment migration remains a vital lever for sovereign nations to raise debt-free capital, attract talented individuals, and deliver benefits to society as a whole. The Commission departments responsible for financial stability and macroeconomic equilibrium have not yet considered the contribution of investment migration.

To preserve the merits of investment migration, national governments and industry stakeholders should coordinate further and speak with one voice. The IMC has been active in Brussels for approximately two years now. Today, the whole IM value chain needs to step up its efforts and form a strong alliance with ambitious public affairs and outreach strategy. The IMC could play a central role in guiding such a coordinated effort.

Source: imidaily.com
Published: 3 November 2020

Malta’s Parliamentary Secretary for Citizenship, Alex Muscat, today echoed the conclusions drawn last week by both the Investment Migration Council and leading scholar on EU constitutional and citizenship law, Prof. Dimitry Kochenov: The European Commission’s demand that Malta and Cyprus terminate their citizenship by investment programs are ultra vires and politically motivated.

“We have been in communication with Justice Commissioner Didier Reynders for months now,” Muscat told Malta Today. “We have already shown our intention to reply to the letter in the weeks to come. The technical analysis we have is that it is not based on any law. The letter the European Commission sent us is more political than legal – there is no legal basis for the procedure the EU has taken because it is Malta that decides who becomes a Maltese citizen,” he emphasized.

Muscat also indicated he was irritated by repeated comparisons between Malta’s IIP and Cyprus CIP, the latter of which was suspended early this month in the wake of undercover reports that revealed a willingness among senior Cypriot politicians to bend rules to obtain approvals for plainly unsuitable CIP applicants.

“I am annoyed at such comparisons,” said Muscat. “Our standards are completely different from others like in Cyprus […] the IIP is nearing its capping and we have now introduced a new residency program. We’ve learned a lot from the IIP even though it was a strong program indeed, but these programs are attracting a good deal of investment to Malta.”

The European Commission argues that, by virtue of Malta’s membership in the EU, the naturalization of investor migrants in the country has “implications for the Union as a whole” and that the lack of so-called “genuine links” between investor citizens and their new countries pose corruption, money laundering, and security risks. Determination on whom to naturalize, however, falls squarely beyond the remit of the European Commission; under EU law, naturalization is a fundamental competence of the individual member states.

Source: imidaily.com
Published: 28 October 2020

Media Release

Geneva, 23rd October 2020

In response to the infringement procedures initiated by the European Commission against Malta and Cyprus regarding their citizenship by investment programme, the Investment Migration Council (IMC) underlines that, in the European Union (EU or the Union), citizenship of EU Member States remains a national competence. The division of competence between the EU and its Member States is the central postulate on which the Union is based, and the latter can sovereignly decide which individuals and under what circumstances should acquire their citizenship. As rightly noted by the European Parliament, “nationality is defined according to the national laws of that State.”

The IMC reiterates that requesting a “genuine link” to evidence citizenship stands at odds with the age-old tradition in all but the Member States to grant citizenship to foreigners in recognition of their exceptional achievements or their contribution to the country regardless of a so-called link. Moreover, the “genuine link” requirement contradicts the well-established case-law of the European Court of Justice.

Meanwhile, intelligence, security and law enforcement professionals involved in managing investment migration are fully aware of the challenges posed by a few nefarious individuals. Strengthening the governance of investment migration programmes by mitigating the risk of abuse is a core objective of the IMC. That’s why we have developed common due diligence standards to uphold the highest levels of integrity and transparency. In collaboration with world-renowned due diligence companies, we have identified the industry best practices and developed a blueprint for good governance. Our work closely follows the recommendations of the European Commission stipulated in its 2019 report on investment migration. We are also actively promoting the requirements for a sound investment migration through education and certification programmes.

The IMC strongly believes in the cultural and economic opportunities brought by migrants. We support a successful migration policy that hinges not solely on bans, but also rules allowing immigration for ethical reasons or out of economic self-interest. Well-functioning migration programmes facilitate the inevitable will of people to move freely and choose where to live their lives.

Investment migration is a vital lever for sovereign nations to raise debt-free capital, attract talented individuals, and deliver benefits to society as a whole. In Malta, to mention but one example, the Individual Investor Programme fuelled 1,4 billion euros into the island nation’s ailing economy after the euro crisis. Investments have helped create jobs and fund various local voluntary organisations.

Tomorrow, we believe that investment migration will once more prove a welcome lever, especially against the backdrop of our pandemic-affected economies.

In the end, well-regulated investment migration programmes benefit both host countries and migrants alike, as well as our members. That’s why the Investment Migration Council reiterates its commitment to working with the EU institutions towards finding a win-win solution in line with EU law.

End—

About the Investment Migration Council

The Investment Migration Council (IMC) is the worldwide association for investor immigration and citizenship-by-investment, bringing together the leading stakeholders in the field and giving the industry a voice. The IMC sets the standards on a global level and interacts with other professional associations, governments and international organisations in relation to investment migration. The IMC helps to improve public understanding of the issues faced by clients and governments in this area and promotes education and high professional standards among its members.

Media Contact
Email: media@investmentmigration.org

The two countries have raised billions of euros by selling thousands of coveted travel documents, even in some cases granting citizenship to foreigners fleeing arrest warrants.

Cyprus and Malta will face European Union penalties if they do not abandon lucrative programs that sell “golden passports” to foreigners, the bloc says, a long-anticipated crackdown on a practice that in certain cases furnished foreigners — some accused of crimes in their home countries — with travel documents.

The European Commission, the bloc’s administrative branch, has for years had the two nations in its cross hairs over the practice, and its hand was forced by recent revelations of highly placed politicians being involved in the programs.

Most recently, an Al Jazeera investigation in Cyprus purported to show egregious practices by prominent politicians that could enable rich people with criminal records to acquire E.U. passports through citizenship of the two countries, offering them legal protections and the right to freely travel in the bloc.

The initiatives have brought a windfall to the two island nations over the years. Both are known for lax financial regulation frameworks and have a history of building opaque banking systems that have been used for money laundering and tax avoidance, particularly by Russian and Asian billionaires.

Bulgaria, which is also operating a pay-for-passports program, is being investigated by the commission and could face similar legal action down the line. And while the Cypriot and Maltese initiatives are the most notorious in the bloc, most E.U. countries offer residency-for-investment programs that have been criticized by anticorruption activists and by the bloc itself. Twenty of its 27 members give foreign investors residency rights in exchange for payment, which in some cases put the investors on a path to full citizenship.

In a 2018 report, the anticorruption organization Global Witness found that 100,000 people had made use of such initiatives, known as “golden visas,” to acquire legal residence in European Union countries. A 2019 European Commission report said that even the lighter programs, which offered residence benefits to investors, were a cause for concern and risked being abused.

In announcing its decision to open infringement proceedings against Cyprus and Malta, the commission said in a statement on Tuesday that “the granting of E.U. citizenship for predetermined payments or investments without any genuine link with the member states concerned undermines the essence of E.U. citizenship.”

The infringement process is fairly lengthy. The first stage consists of information exchanges between the European Commission and the countries in question, and the countries’ authorities have two months to reply to the accusations. If the responses are not “satisfactory,” then the commission can up the ante, making penalties more likely.

Any punishment for Cyprus and Malta will come only if they do not scrap the programs by the end of the process.

Cyprus, which went bankrupt in 2013, promised to overhaul its banking sector and introduce stronger safeguards in exchange for a bailout from other European countries and the International Monetary Fund. While many commercial banks were subject to overhauls, the passport program was seen as a new way of doing business with clientele that had previously relied on the island’s opaque financial services.

The “golden passport” plans also offered the island economies with limited resources and small industrial, agricultural and manufacturing sectors a source of state revenue that avoided investing in other sectors or raising taxes. And in the cases of both Cyprus and Malta, it played to their strengths as financial services centers with significant expert work forces.

Since Cyprus began its current program in 2013, it has issued about 4,000 passports, raising 7 billion euros, or around $8.2 billion, in revenue. The program allows foreigners to get a Cypriot passport in exchange for at least €2 million investment in the country, usually in real estate, with minimal additional requirements and a light-touch oversight process.

The country last year stripped 26 people from Cambodia, Iran, Malaysia and Russia of recently granted passports, most prominent among them Jho Low, a Malaysian financier on the run for a major financial scandal known as 1MDB. Mr. Low has denied any wrongdoing.

Last week, Cyprus said that it would end its golden passport program as of Nov. 1 but that it would continue to process the backlog of applications. And while the government acknowledged that the initiative had been abused, it denied any wrongdoing.

In Malta, Prime Minister Robert Abela spoke out in favor of its program on Monday in anticipation of the E.U. legal action. “We will be defending Malta,” he said, according to local news media.

Mr. Abela also pointed to the financial lift that it had given the country. “Had it not been for the contributions from that program, which we are in the process of winding down, we would probably not have been in a position to present a budget of this scale,” Mr. Abela said.

Malta’s program was started in 2014, and by mid-2017 had issued more than 2,000 passports and raised €718 million, according to the 2018 Global Witness report. The office that oversees the Maltese program did not reply to a New York Times request on Tuesday for more up-to-date information and comment.

The European Commission seemed unconvinced by pledges to end the program in Cyprus and overhaul it in Malta.

“Malta in fact informed the commission that it envisages the prolongation of citizenship for investment,” a spokesman, Christian Wigand, said on Tuesday. “And while Cyprus very recently announced it will end its current scheme as of 1st of November, it will continue to process pending applications.”

“We understand there are already calls regarding the introduction of new schemes,” Mr. Wigand added. “Such schemes are in violation of E.U. law, and this is why we are launching the infringements today.”

Activists welcomed the news on Tuesday. “For years, the governments of both countries have ignored public outrage,” Laure Brillaud of Transparency International E.U. said in a statement. “The European Commission’s decision means they could find themselves in the European Court of Justice unless both countries take swift action to end the abuse.”

“We are hopeful that the infringement procedures will be complemented by the urgent and necessary E.U.-wide reform,” she added. “The European Commission should present a plan for phasing out the golden visa schemes as the next step.”

Source: nytimes.com
Published: 21 October 2020

The urge to escape covid-19 has given it a boost

FOR THE industry’s critics, it is a scandal that exposes exactly what they have been warning about. Many people have an almost instinctive distaste for the business in selling long-term-residence rights in a country or even citizenship there for cash, usually in the form of an authorised investment. So a documentary this month on Al Jazeera, a Qatar-based television channel, seeming to uncover corruption in an “investment migration” scheme offered by Cyprus, did not not seem especially shocking. It showed Cypriot politicians filmed in a sting operation, apparently willing to sell their country’s passport to a (fictitious) Chinese businessman who, in the cover story, had been convicted to seven years in jail for money-laundering, and so should have been ineligible.

For the industry’s practitioners—the consultants, accountants, bankers, wealth managers, lawyers and government departments selling their country’s charms—this is a blow. Although the politicians involved have protested their innocence, Cyprus has suspended its “golden passport” scheme from November 1st. European Union officials in Brussels and members of the European Parliament were already hostile to such schemes. And in response to the latest scandal, the European Commission has begun legal action (“infringement procedures”) to investigate both Cyprus’s scheme and one offered by Malta. It is an extremely sensitive issue for the EU. On the one hand, no issue is more jealousy guarded as a “national” competence than whom a country allows to be a citizen. On the other hand, a passport from an EU member confers the right to live and work anywhere in the EU; and a “Schengen” visa allows free travel to 22 EU members and four other countries.

Defenders of the schemes insist that criminals seeking a bolthole are the exception, and that they are making great strides in imposing stricter “due diligence” standards. The vast majority of their customers, they argue, are honest, respectable people with a legitimate hankering after an alternative to the passport and residence rights they acquired by the lottery of birth. The loss of Cyprus restricts their options. But there are plenty of others, and demand is booming, despite the huge decline in global mobility brought by the pandemic. Indeed, covid-19 has spurred interest in investment migration.

“The industry is not merely robust in turbulence,” says Christian Nesheim, editor of Investment Migration Insider, a trade journal, “it thrives on it.” Indeed it really took off partly as a response to the global financial crisis of 2007-08. Like so many other businesses, it ground to a halt in the early days of the pandemic, as travel became impossible for much of the world and governments stopped processing paperwork. But since then it has enjoyed “more demand than we have ever seen”, in the words of Paddy Blewer of Henley & Partners, which advises both individuals seeking new residence or citizenship and governments designing programmes for them. People in countries with high infection rates and creaking health services began to see that as a reason to move elsewhere. And people with passports that had previously found themselves able to travel the world more or less unimpeded found their countries on banned or quarantine lists. At the beginning of the year, for example, according to Henley’s research, an American passport entitled its holder to travel to 185 countries without first securing a visa. That number has since shrunk to fewer than 75.

Around the world, nearly 100 countries offer a “residence by investment” programme, including many of the world’s richest countries, such as America, Australia, Britain and New Zealand. Only a dozen or so countries offer citizenship—including five Caribbean island-states (Antigua and Barbuda, Dominic, Grenada, St Kitts and St Lucia), a Pacific one (Vanuatu), Jordan, Turkey and, within the European Union, Austria, Bulgaria and Malta (as well as, until the end of the month, Cyprus). The citizenship or residence by investment (CRBI) business traces its ancestry to a law passed in 1984 in tiny St Kitts and Nevis, offering citizenship to foreigners who made a “substantial” investment. How substantial varies from country to country. In Cyprus’s case at least €2m ($2.3m) in investment, usually in property, is required. Malta demands a “donation” of €650,000 to a government fund, €150,000 invested in government bonds and a property purchase or long-term lease. Research this subject online, and you will soon be seeing advertisements offering a choice of Caribbean citizenships “from $150,000”.

Al Jazeera’s choice of a Chinese applicant made sense, China is by far the biggest market for most CRBI schemes. Much the most popular destination for Chinese investment migrants is America. But the waiting-list for Chinese applicants to America’s “EB-5” long-term visa programme is 10-15 years. The EU is a good second choice. The commonest reason Chinese people want residence elsewhere is education. Parents want to spare their offspring the gruelling university-entrance exam, the gaokao. And they believe that a foreign education will open up opportunities unavailable at home. Even childless Chinese also see the attractions of a “plan B” should they find the political or economic climate in China inhospitable.

China’s success in containing the virus and the deterioration in its relations with America and some other countries have done nothing, apparently, to dent demand this year. A worsening climate of repression continues to make the option of an alternative residence abroad seem desirable. That is especially true in Hong Kong since the imposition in June of a draconian national-security law. In fact, many Hong Kong residents already have a second potential home. In the 1980s and 1990s, as the handover from British to Chinese sovereignty in 1997 loomed, Hong Kong was a big driver of the growth of the CRBI industry.

Bruno L’ecuyer, chief executive of the Investment Migration Council, an industry lobbying group, says demand is also increasing during the pandemic in other big markets such as India and Russia. And the Middle East seems to be behind the rapid growth in Turkey’s citizenship by investment programme, which granted 4,000 passports between March and May. Worldwide, says Mr L’ecuyer, the business is “slowly becoming more mainstream”. It is no longer just for the “ultra” and “very high net-worth” individuals. These days, it seems, merely very rich will do.

What has been new during the pandemic is burgeoning interest from countries previously seen as destinations rather than sources of investment migration, such as Britain, and, in particular, America, which has, as Mr Nesheim points out, far more very rich people than any other country. In Britain, interest in second passports or residences has been increasing ever since the country voted for Brexit in 2016. In America, the election of Donald Trump that year had a similar effect. In both countries, the pandemic has accelerated the trend. Henley reports an increase of 238% in inquiries from Americans in the first nine months of this year compared with the same period in 2019, though they still make up only a small percentage of the global business’s overall numbers.

Indeed, those numbers themselves are fairly small—about 5,000 passports a year, and several times that number of long-term resident’s visas. And the industry likes to point to the good done with the large sums of money raised from investors—facilitating the rebuilding of Dominica after Hurricane Maria in late 2017, for example; or Cyprus’s recovery from the financial crisis. In Dominica the citizenship by investment programme was forecast by the government to make up 51% of recurrent government revenue and 25% of GDP this year. Doubtless, as minds turn to the cost of recovery from the pandemic, many governments will find investment migration’s attractions hard to resist. The industry is confident Cyprus’s scheme will be back.

Source: economist.com
Published: 20 October 2020

Legal pathways, cheaper remittances, guaranteeing women’s rights could help get people moving again according to new UN research.

Global human mobility has halted with the overall impact of COVID-19, hitting people on the move hard. As borders re-open slowly, a new UN Development Programme (UNDP) report illustrates how governments can shape migration to benefit development and boost recovery.

The report, Human Mobility, Shared Opportunities: A Review of the 2009 Human Development Report and the Way Ahead, looks back at the last decade and assesses how future policy responses could facilitate safe, orderly, and regular migration.

Human Mobility, Shared Opportunities recommends expanding legal pathways, reducing transaction costs on remittances, guaranteeing migrants’ rights, especially for women, fostering integration and social cohesion, and mobilizing diasporas. With forced migration doubling over the last 10 years to around 79 million people, tackling its causes will be essential for development.

“The pandemic and the pause in travel is a chance to reshape human mobility and build forward better. Promoting the benefits, reducing the costs and making migration a choice will prepare us today to face the further challenges of climate change, growing inequality, and the digital transformation of labour tomorrow,” said UNDP Administrator Achim Steiner.

People on the move are extremely vulnerable to the health, economic and social impacts of the coronavirus. With their high economic and labour contributions, migrants are also essential to recovery. ‘Nobody is safe until everyone is safe’ means an inclusive response, including migrants.

“The 2008 Global Economic Crisis was followed by a decade of much politicised debate, some progress and many missed opportunities on human mobility. We must redouble efforts now and focus on progress over the next ten years if we are to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals,” concluded Achim Steiner.

Managed well, human mobility propels economic growth, reduces inequalities, and connects diverse societies. Although they make up for only 3.5 percent of the world’s population, migrants generated 9 percent of global GDP in 2015, for example.

Research by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank shows that a percentage increase in the migrant share of the population in high income countries boosts per capita income by two percent. If immigrants increased the workforces of wealthy countries by three percent, that would boost world GDP by US$356 billion by 2025.

“Healthy economies and societies depend on human mobility. COVID-19 recovery efforts must include migrants, ensuring that neither their rights are marginalized nor their potential for contribution is left to waste,” added UNDP’s Assistant Administrator and Director for the Crisis Bureau, Asako Okai.

The report says that since 2009 little progress has been made in addressing the mobility of low-skilled migrants. Migrants’ rights are more protected on paper, but their access to social protection and services is still limited in most countries. And transaction costs for documents, travel and money transfer remain stubbornly high.

At the same time, new approaches are enhancing the benefits of human mobility for migrants and their families, and also for countries of origin and destination. These include efforts to expand legal migration pathways, digital innovations to help people earn a living on the move, a renewed focus on social protection and on the participation of diasporas in the policies of countries of origin.

“Migrants help provide the building blocks for prosperous societies bringing knowledge, support, networks, and skills in countries of origin, transit and destination,” says António Vitorino, Director General for the International Organization for Migration (IOM). “Yet the development benefits of migration are not guaranteed. Positive outcomes depend on having conducive social, cultural, political and economic structures in place.”

Together with the International Organization for Migration, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, and partners in the UN Network on Migration, UNDP stands ready to support policymakers in amplifying the empowerment effects of migration and mitigating increased vulnerabilities in view of the Sustainable Development Goals and the Agenda 2030.

Human Mobility, Shared Opportunities: A Review of the 2009 Human Development Report and the Way Ahead is published as UNDP marks 30 years of its annual landmark Human Development Reports with a series of events.

Source: undp.org

Published: 21 October 2020

Press Release: 19th of October 2020

The InvestUK Group has seen remarkable 50% growth during 2020.

When most businesses has shrunk during the Covid 19 pandemic IUK Group has seen an impressive jump in inward investment appetite for the UK. Since it started operations in 2013, The Group has completed 280 transactions with a direct investment value of £110m, creating 2,650 new UK jobs and 2020 is proving to be a record year.This covers a mix of investment strategies, many connected to clients seeking to qualify for residency in the United Kingdom.

InvestUK is successfully leveraging the stability, prosperity, and international brand recognition of the UK to attract Foreign Direct Investment.

Rupert Gather, founder and Group Executive Chairman, remarks that “it seems the increasing interest in the UK is a result of global uncertainty caused by Covid-19 pandemic and the UK’s new independent position as it exits the Eurpoean Union.

Clients are particualry interested in the new Innovator Visa and the IUK Group has helped 80 innovators qualify since the launch of programme in 2019, by ensuring their business idea, structure and investment strategy meet stringent Government requirements of innovation, viability and scalability”.

To meet the increasing demand for its services, the IUK Group is opening international representative offices in Dubai, Hong Kong, Beijing and Lagos. These offices will serve to improve client management and to release its full potential as a global platform for advisory and subscription-based investment management services in UK.

ABOUT IUK Group Limited

ABOUT INVESTUK

InvestUK is a market-leading foreign direct investment firm bringing together foreign investors and entrepreneurs with UK business and investment opportunities. Since its founding in 2013, it has steadily established itself as the market-leading investment firm specializing in Foreign Direct Investment into the UK economy. Based in London’s prestigious Mayfair district, the Invest UK has developed a unique market positioning with far-reaching distribution capability amongst global private clients. The Group comprises InvestUK, Innovate in Britain and IUK Academy.

ABOUT INNOVATE BRITAIN 

Innovate Britain is a business incubator and Home Office approved Endorsing Body for the Innovator visa. Innovate Britain channel innovation into the UK economy by supporting the world’s finest entrepreneurs to build innovative, viable and scalable businesses in the United Kingdom.

Source: www.investuk.com
Published: 19 October 2020