Most of the monetary requirements are to stop scams - ie where millionaire's kid bills family company abroad for $100K and gets to stay in the US running his company. It's also the reason for requiring qualified investors - to stop this just being family money recycled.

Although it is a bit silly that if you invented say a malaria vaccine and had a $Bn in foreign sales you would be deported!

IMHO, it is in the best interest of the US to let rich people in. They have a big potential to invest or consume.

Depends on what you mean by 'rich' - $1M, $10M, $1Bn ?

There have been classes of investment visa for people bringing $1M into the country. But then people simply used it to buy a house = $1M in some areas. So then there were requirements that it had to be invested in a business, so people formed a company, bought a house and leased it to themselves.

So the politicians upped the $$ requirement, but that leads to different problems. People with $100M in cash are often not very nice citizens - do you want to give Col Qaddafi, Kim Jung whoever, etc a US visa if they bring $100M of their people's money with them? How many of their family/ friends/ associates also get a visa?

People with $100mm could buy their visa by making a unprofitable business and come in on the immigrant investor visa anyway. Or get a US friend to create a company where they have veto powers and come over on an L-1A and get their green card in 2-3 years due to no labor certification or waiting list. And their spouse can work also on a L-2 visa when they apply with him. Someone who has made a $100million could also get an O visa. Your a pretty remarkable person if you've made $100 million.

Also if you have $100 million and don't setup your income to be indirect through companies and such, the USA taxes all international income, even if you've never lived or set foot in the US for years, and has an expat tax if you give up your green card or citizenship explicitly made for rich people. The usa is the only country in the world to do this and makes it unattractive to actually get a citizenship from them if your wealthy. You can still do business and profit from the country quite well without being a citizen and at that level you could do business in the country part time coming in on B-2 visas. The consulate would have no problem giving you a 10 year multiple entry B-2 visa since you have a very very very low illegal immigration risk.

The rich can already invest from outside the country-- capital flows freely across our borders.