Donald J. Trump’s election adds a new wrinkle. He campaigned heavily on immigration reform, pledging to build a wall on the Mexican border and increase the deportation of criminal noncitizens. He also said he wanted to reduce legal immigration and ensure jobs are offered to Americans first.

“Whether President-elect Trump will actually follow through on these pledges remains to be seen,” said Stephen W. Yale-Loehr, a law professor at Cornell University and an immigration lawyer. “It is always difficult for Congress to enact significant immigration changes because immigration is so complex and controversial.”

The United States is not alone in offering residence for investment. Germany, Australia and Canada have versions of the program, as do several small countries. Competition among Caribbean nations is rising for their citizenship-by-investment programs, with St. Lucia being the most recent to revamp its program.

Foreign interest is growing. According to an analysis by professors at New York University, investments in the program are increasingly financing large-scale, luxury or entertainment-oriented real estate developments. Among them: nearly $1 billion gathered in the last year from 2,000 investors to build a Chinese-style casino in Las Vegas, $600 million from 1,200 investors for New York’s mixed-use Hudson Yards project and $150 million from 300 investors to construct the Beverly Hills Waldorf Astoria.

The program was intended to reward people for putting money into the United States. Projects that raised more than $1 billion were practically nonexistent in the program before 2010, Prof. Jeanne Calderon of New York University’s Stern School of Business wrote in a March report on the program. But when banks turned off the credit spigot around the 2008 financial crisis, developers started getting more creative in finding alternative financing.