US Congressman Burgess Owens (UT-04) and Steve Cohen (TN-09) on March 3 introduced the Trafficking Ban Act, which intends to remove from the US Visa Waiver Program countries that operate Citizenship-by-Investment schemes. The latter is also known as the Golden Passport and is the practice of selling passports in exchange for economic investment.
The No Travel for Traffickers Act wants to bar all countries that sell passports from participating in the US visa waiver program and requires the Executive Branch to publicly list all countries with investment citizenship, also widely recognized as “Golden Passport,” VisaGuide.World reports.
In addition, this program will lead the Executive Branch to work with the United Kingdom and the European Union to eliminate visa-free travel to the Schengen area for countries selling passports and to ban the use of US taxpayer funds to verify “golden passport” applicants so that taxpayer dollars are not used to enable these corrupt programs.
According to the US Congress, these so-called “golden passports” are abused by human traffickers, international criminals, and corrupt oligarchs.
Rep. Owens, in this regard, said that the act of banning travel for traffickers addresses the severe security risks of golden passports, which signals a critical step in the country’s efforts to isolate bad actors across the globe.
“Human trafficking kingpins and other international criminal enterprises rely heavily on their passport purchasing power to freely travel the world, establish a foothold in multiple countries, open bank accounts, and evade accountability,” he also added.At the same time, Rep. Cohen expressed pride that they have introduced this law together with Congressman Owens, which according to him, will help limit this misuse of the legal process. He also added that many countries sell their substandard to traffickers through fake ‘investments’ such as real estate, which should end as soon as possible. Meanwhile, former Assistant Secretary for Terrorist Financing at the US Treasury Department, Marshall Billingslea, addressing Congressman Owens and Cohen, said the two were leading the country’s governance well by introducing bipartisan legislation to suppress the dangerous practice of some countries selling their citizenship.
“These so-called “golden passport” schemes are abused by criminals and traffickers from around the world, and this practice needs to come to an end,” he noted.In a press release issued by Congressman Owens, it is noted that, when it comes to using these golden passport schemes, Russia is one of the worst violators in the world. >> UK Abolishes Its Golden Visa Program