As countries increasingly slam the door on travellers from low-income countries, there are some migrants who are actively courted: ‘high-value’ people with access to large sums of capital.
Bulgaria and Cyprus both offer ‘citizenship by investment’, a scheme that was dreamed up by Saint Kitts and Nevis in the Caribbean. It waives naturalization rules – such as residency or language skills – in return for payments into government funds or the purchase of property. ‘Golden visa’ schemes operate on a similar logic, handing out residency permits – for a hefty fee – to those who may never have set foot in the county.
