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As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing the proposed, and let me be clear this is still a proposed piece of legislation. It has not been promulgated by either the US House of Representatives nor has it been passed through the Senate or signed by the President of the United States, it remains a bill but it is proposed and it does seem to have bipartisan support and it could have some substantial ramifications for expats the world over frankly, including here in Southeast Asia. 

I am taking this from owens.house.gov, and the announcement is titled: Owens, Cohen Introduce the No travel for Traffickers Act. Quoting directly: "Today, Representatives Burgess Owens, (Utah District 4) and Steve Cohen, (Tennessee District 9) introduced the No Travel for Traffickers Act, bipartisan legislation to revoke a country's eligibility for the U.S. Visa Waiver Program if they participate in citizenship by investment, the practice of selling passports in exchange for economic investment. Also known as "golden passports," these schemes require little vetting and are notoriously abused by human traffickers, International criminals, and corrupt oligarchs. Russia is one of the world's worst offenders when it comes to using these golden passport schemes as a back door into other countries." 

Well I find this whole legislation rather odd. First of all, it seems a little bit kind of over the top hubris for the United States to be trying to dictate Immigration, internal Immigration policies and Naturalization policies of other sovereign nations. But what they are really doing, they are not really doing that, they are kind of trying to do it indirectly by saying "okay well if you engage in this you may not be eligible for the Visa Waiver Program" which is a program by which certain passport holders can travel to the United States without the need for a Visa. Now my response to this would be would be, well just how useful is the Visa waiver program for most countries these days anyway especially since the end of the Bush Administration and the creation of ESTA, the Electronic System for Travel Authorization. I mean ESTA essentially was like a roundabout Visa. Those who could utilize the Visa Waiver Program had to go through the ESTA program in order to be pre-qualified to even enter the country. I compared the so-called Certificates of Entry here in Thailand as well as the Thailand Pass to the ESTA program. When those first were created, I compared them extensively especially the Certificates of Entry to the ESTA program because it was, in Thailand's case it was a visa on top of a visa in many ways. It was a travel document on top of a travel document. In the case of the United States okay you are waived from actually needing a Visa but you have still got to go through ESTA which as a practical matter is basically a Visa in all the ways that matter. It is like a digital Visa. 

So I am not even going to get into this whole "is this right or wrong" that they have these policies regarding second citizenships. I would maybe urge the House and it seems to be bipartisan, maybe think about this long and hard because a lot of these countries that are doing this are doing it for the financial incentives. On top of this, their nationals still have to deal with ESTA anyway so how are they going to react? On top of it, just setting aside the kind of emotional response to another country telling them how to set their Immigration policies, where you have ESTA now and the Visa Waiver Program is not just sort of an easy thing to do, a "no hassle" thing to do, kind of begs the question whether or not some of these countries are going to care about this new legislation.