Tappan Zee Bridge developer trading money for green cards

If you build it, they will come — to America.

Deep-pocketed Chinese investors can get on the fast track to a green card if they plunk down $500,000 to help finance the beleaguered $3.9 billion Tappan Zee Bridge project.

Seattle-based developer Michael Mattox is recruiting the cash cows through a controversial visa program created in 1990 to encourage foreign investment in US projects.

As long as their money helps create at least 10 new jobs with their funding, they and their families can get 2-year, "EB-5" green cards and ultimately earn permanent residency status.

In China, agents are hawking the green-card program with pictures of President Obama and Gov. Cuomo, stunning backdrops of the Tappan Zee and the promise of financial security and a green card.

Mattox said he couldn't divulge specifics of the Tappan Zee plans, citing Securities and Exchange Commission laws.

But he noted his company's successful track record — it recently collected $50 million in bonds from 95 foreign investors toward a $4 billion bridge project in Seattle.

"Most of our investors are worth several million," he told The Post, adding that they come from Vietnam, Cambodia, Brazil and Colombia. "They're bringing that from their country to our country. We get people from all over the world."

Once the investor pledges the cash, he or she — and their family members — are on the short bridge to citizenship.

In less than six months, they can obtain one of 10,000 conditional "EB-5" green cards allotted annually by the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services.

After five years, they're eligible for US citizenship.

Mattox said investors are vetted by the government.

"You can just imagine the black eye the government would get if they allowed criminals or money laundering," he said. "All of the investment has to be sourced."

Mattox's company, one of about 600 regional centers approved by USCIS to give out green cards for investments, receives administrative fees and a cut of investments it raises.

Mattox, though, was mum on the exact profit he reaps.

The new bridge, which will replace the current 60-year-old, 3-mile Tappan Zee, is slated to be completed in April 2018.

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