Are rich foreigners the answer to America's housing crash? (Buy a $500,000 house, get a visa)

I think it is great that you can trace your ancestery back to the “colonial” period. However, they were still immigrants to North America. Even “Native Americans” emigrated here during the iceage from Asia across the Bering Strait.

By the way I went to a private grammer and High School associated with the Catholic church.

By and far most people in these United States can not trace their heritage back to the Mayflower. Most people emmigrated here in the 1800’s from Europe. However, keep in mind :

“Santa Fe is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The founding of the city in 1610 pre-dates the settlement of Plymouth Colony (1620-1621) in Massachusetts and compares with Jamestown, Virginia (1607). It is the third oldest surviving city in the United States after St. Augustine (1565) and Pensacola (1559), both in Florida and the oldest capital city.”

Therefore, unless your ancestors were some of the original settlers of St. Augustine, Pensacola or Santa Fe they came after the original European settlers. Also, Hispanic settlers in Sante Fe were here well before the Pilgrims stepped on Plymouth Rock. Yet a lot of people look down on Hispanics as if they all were “wetbacks” that came here illegally in the last 20 years.

Foreign Buyer Visa Bill Backfires
by: Steve Cook Wed, October 26, 2011

Legislation introduced in the Senate last week to stimulate property sales by giving visas to foreign investors who spend more than $500,000 to buy US homes is creating a firestorm of opposition on Web sites and talk shows across the nation.
The initial reaction is not the sponsors expected. Overnight, the bill has become the focus of attacks from those opposed to US immigration policy and foreign ownership of real property.

It is also turning a spotlight on the increasingly important role foreign buyers are having in domestic real estate markets. Fororeigners spent $82 billion buying up U.S. homes in the 12 months ended in March, up 24 percent from a year earlier, according to the National Association of Realtors (NAR). That represents 8 percent of total U.S. sales. Since March, foreign buyers, largely from Canada and Central America, have been active buying up discount priced foreclosed condos and single family homes in Florida, Las Vegas and other resort destinations.

http://www.realestateeconomywatch.com/2011/10/foreign-buyer-visa-bill-backfires/

“By and far most people in these United States can not trace their heritage back to the Mayflower. “

They probably don’t. But a good deal more can and do trace their ancestry to the Sarah Constant, the Goodspeed, the Discovery and other ships that landed at Jamestown. A very large number of southerners can trace their ancestry back to colonial Virginia.

“Therefore, unless your ancestors were some of the original settlers of St. Augustine, Pensacola or Santa Fe they came after the original European settlers. “

A statement remarkable for its lack of relevance to American history.

Those Spanish cities played no part in the 13 original colonies or the creation of the United States.

By contrast the New Amsterdam Dutch, the New Sweden Finns, some French Huguenots and German colonials actually were part of the mix in the British North America, which is the origin of the United States.

St. Augustine and Pensacola were minor outposts of a foreign power and became part of America when Spain sold them to the United States, much like New Orleans and Mobile became American when France sold its territory to the US.

Anyone wishing to learn what groups formed the American people could profit by reading David Hackett Fischer’s ‘Albion’s Seed’.

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