AllesAmerika.com Forum

LunAnn schreef:Hallo allemaal,
Ik heb al even rondgekeken op het forum, maar kon geen ervaringsverhalen vinden van mensen die naar Amerika zijn geemigreerd (sorry voor de spelling, kan geen " op mijn toetsenbord vinden ) met een EB5-visum.

Zijn er mensen die bezig zijn met dit visum? Of die geemigreerd zijn dmv dit visum?

Heel graag hoor ik jullie ervaringen met dit visum en welk bureau betrouwbaar is.

Alvast bedank!

Groetjes

John K. schreef: Stuur maar een PM als je meer wilt weten!

Old Faithful schreef:

John K. schreef: Stuur maar een PM als je meer wilt weten!

Ik vind dat jammer.
Ik kan me goed voorstellen dat je niet alles op een openbaar forum wilt plaatsen en dat je daar een pm voor gebruikt. Maar het is juist de grote kracht van een forum als dit, dat de informatie voor iedereen beschikbaar is.

@LunAnn: Veel succes.

(...) The program, known as EB-5, provides wealthy foreigners access to permanent-residency visas, also known as green cards, in exchange for an investment of at least $500,000 that creates 10 full-time jobs in the United States. The majority of the visas are going to applicants from China.

GAO spokesman Chuck Young confirmed that the agency received a request to review the EB-5 program from senior Republican Sens. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, Bob Corker of Tennessee and Tom Coburn of Oklahoma.
The senators are influential members of committees on immigration law, national security and foreign relations.
(...)
Sen. Grassley said, “I’ve had too many whistle-blowers come forward expressing concerns with the EB-5 program, to not have some trepidations with it.” Federal agencies have raised national-security concerns, he noted, and efforts have been made at the request of politically influential people to expedite visa requests.
(...)
The latest inquiry comes as Congress is poised to take up the program’s reauthorization next year. Congress created a pilot program in 1992 to allow funders known as “regional centers” to pool investments from wealthy immigrants seeking EB-5 visas.

The EB-5 program, which was essentially shut down through much of the 1990s due to fraud, has exploded in size: There are about 600 regional centers today, compared to fewer than 50 before the 2008 financial crisis.
(...)
In August, a federal grand jury indicted Anshoo Sethi, a 30-year-old Chicago operator of an EB-5 regional center, on charges of fraud for allegedly duping 290 Chinese nationals seeking visas into investing $160 million in a hotel and convention- center project near O’Hare International Airport. About $147 million was frozen by the Securities and Exchange Commission and returned to the Chinese investors.

A year ago, the Office of Inspector General for the Department of Homeland Security delivered a blistering critique of the federal agency charged with managing the EB-5 program, Citizenship and Immigration Services. Among its conclusions:

• Existing rules don’t allow the agency to bar a regional center from the program, even if officials have concerns about fraud or national security.

• Poor data collection makes it impossible to verify that foreign investors’ funds actually created U.S. jobs.

• The agency is ill-equipped to oversee a job-creation program.
(...)

Through a federal visa program known as EB-5, foreigners, more than 80 percent of them from China, are investing billions of dollars in hotels, condominiums, office towers and public/private works in the hope it will result in green cards.
...
It generally takes from 22 to 26 months to obtain legal residency through the program, as opposed to several years for other visa programs.
...
In the last four years, the program’s popularity has surged. In fiscal year 2010, 1,885 visas were issued. But by fiscal year 2013 that figure jumped 354 percent to 8,564, according to government data. Last year, the entire annual allotment of 10,000 visas had been claimed by August — before the end of the fiscal year in October.
This year the quota was reached even earlier, on May 1. Under the program, the family of the investor, including any dependent under 21, can apply for a green card, and each family member is counted toward the quota. As most investors apply as a couple or a family, the supply is used up quickly.
...
“You have to be very clear about the process and the project and how it is financed,” Mr. Lin said. “Unfortunately, many Chinese are clear about the immigration process, but are not familiar with the project they are investing in.” It is important, he said, because if a project fails, foreigners can lose both their investment and the opportunity to secure a green card.
...
Developers are eager to access the visa program because it is cheaper than many other financing sources. This is in large part because the participants are focused on securing green cards and are therefore willing to take smaller returns on their investment, typically earning less than 1 percent.
...
But while the program can make sense for foreigners and developers, several well-documented cases of fraud have occurred, primarily involving developers who misrepresented themselves to investors and then failed to deliver a completed project. And while a traditional commercial bank pays close attention to construction schedules and dispenses funds as the project proceeds, EB-5 investors deliver lump sums, so a developer could spend the money before the project is complete and wind up with a funding shortfall.
...
One aspect that has come under scrutiny is location. Projects are supposed to be in areas of high unemployment, yet are in prosperous neighborhoods like Midtown, Chelsea and TriBeCa. This is because developers are allowed to incorporate contiguous census tracts in their calculations. Pacific Park Brooklyn, for example, is on the border of wealthy brownstone Brooklyn neighborhoods, yet relied on high unemployment figures from areas of Crown Heights and Bedford-Stuyvesant to make its case.
...
Parts of the visa program are up for renewal in September, and Congress is likely to address some concerns; the rapidly snapped-up 10,000-visa allotment may be among them. “It is going to be fixed and they will reshuffle the number of visas to make more available,” said Mona Shah, an immigration lawyer who specializes in the visa program.
...
There is also a good chance that the $500,000 investment threshold will be raised, an effort that Invest in the USA supports, and the practice of using contiguous census tracts may be curtailed.

kastelke schreef:Blijkbaar is het hebben van dat pak geld ook al niet meer voldoende, want de beschikbare visa zijn al uitgedeeld voor het jaar half is...