Organizational structure of migrant brokerage: the case of investment immigration to the U.S.

How does the institutional field of migration brokerage change in response to state regulations? This study understands the ecosystem of brokers facilitating investment immigration to the U.S. as a migration infrastructure, and uses concepts from economic sociology to understand organizational changes in this infrastructure. Until the 2010s, investment immigration was a small-scale phenomenon, and few immigrant investors applied for this visa program. However, a proliferation of so-called “regional centers”, brokerage firms authorized to facilitate pooled investments and submit immigration paperwork, has boosted participation in this visa program. Based on 44 interviews with actors within this infrastructure, this paper documents how regional centers developed the organizational capacity they needed in order to develop legal workarounds to restrictive migration policies. Moreover, it also shows how these legal workarounds kickstarted a feedback mechanism, whereby state actors introduce newly tightened migrations regulations designed to close loopholes. In the U.S. investment immigration infrastructure, brokers responded to the tightening of regulations by engaging in vertical integration. Vertically integrated migrant brokerages thus became a new organizational norm with which migrants had to grapple. Applying an organizational lens thus opens up the “black box” of migrant brokerage and allows us to understand how migration infrastructures must change and adapt to changing policy terrain.