Looking to save some money in financing costs, the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission is actively soliciting wealthy Chinese investors to help pay for a long-sought connector between the turnpike and I-95 near Philadephia.

To lure the rich Chinese investors, the offer of a quick path to U.S. citizenship is offered. Turnpike officials are using the federal EB-5 visa program to attract the wealthy investors for the highway project.

As originally designed, the EB-5 program was intended to help create jobs in the United States. The idea was that well-to-do foreigners would come to the U.S., start a company and employ Americans. The details required an investment of $500,000 or more with the creation of at least 10 jobs in certain high-unemployment areas. With a $1 million investment and the same 10 or more jobs created, the company did not have to locate in one of the targeted areas.

Even in the early 1990s, when the program was created, there were critics who saw EB-5 visas as little more than selling citizenship to the wealthy. But the job-creation part of the program softened some opposition because it was good for the U.S. economy and helped Americans by providing jobs.

With immigration reform a hot political issue these days, the turnpike’s plan to attract rich Chinese investors for a highway project looks like a stretch, at least considerng the law’s original intent.

As the Los Angeles Times wrote in a story about a Chicago real estate developer using the EB-5 visa program to attract rich Chinese investors — when it comes to immigration “the skilled and poor are out of luck. But the rich are another matter.”

Recent news reports say that the Pennsylvania turnpike’s financing effort already has 100 wealthy Chinese signed up, with the goal being 400 investors. The extra $200 million to $400 million from wealthy Chinese will come with lower interest rates, thus saving the turnpike commission an estimated $35 million over five years compared with traditional financing.

But this is not what Congress intended when the EB-5 program was created. It is not what the American people want either.

The job-creation feature has some appeal. But it’s a stretch to argue a highway project is creating jobs in the way the EB-5 program intended. Yes, workers will be employed building the road, but the EB-5 program painted a picture of an entrepreneurial immigrant from China, Russia, Brazil or any other country coming to the U.S. and starting a company that created new jobs.

What is being done with the turnpike project and others around the country now is simply selling citizenship to high bidders, mostly Chinese.

All the national attention on immigration is about border security and whether to provide a path to citizenship to undocumented workers who pay taxes, fines or fees. Few people know that rich Chinese or other wealthy foreigners can quickly and easily buy citizenship for themselves and their families.

The EB-5 visa program is being distorted and abused — and it’s only about money now. That’s wrong, but not surprising.