The sale of passports and visas to non-citizens-once considered a “shady” black market business- has flourished into a full-fledged global industry. Citizenship-by-investment (CBI) and residency-by-investment (RBI), commonly referred to as “Golden Passport” and “Golden Visa” programs respectively, create accelerated legal pathways for third country nationals to attain passports or visas in exchange for foreign investment. Today, selling passports and visas is not only legally sanctioned, but actively promoted by over 100 countries across the globe, with the Gulf region emerging as a critical hub for this market over the last decade.

Why are people who may be relatively economically privileged but legally precarious increasingly turning to these programs to help solve their citizenship and residency status?

What does this market for passports and visas reveal about emerging patterns of labor, migration, and belonging in the Gulf and globally?

Speakers

Noora Lori

Noora Lori is Associate Professor of International Relations at Boston University. Her research focuses on temporal strategies of migration enforcement, citizenship regimes and racial hierarchies in comparative perspective. She is author of the multi-award winning Offshore Citizens: Permanent Temporary Status in the Gulf (Cambridge UP, 2019) and numerous articles in journals of international migration, Middle East Studies and Global Security.

Her second book, in preparation, is Mobility Diplomacy: The Politics and Markets of Passport Power in the Global South.

Full Bio