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... (of wachten tot volgend jaar en hopen dat je ondertussen de loterij wint - die van de groene kaart, of van de staatslotterij/Lotto). Men zou mogelijk wel meer visa ter beschikking gaan stellen, maar ook de $500,000 zal vermoedelijk opgetrokken gaan worden.
Snel zijn is de boodschap?
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/17/reale ... d=fb-share" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
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.
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It generally takes from 22 to 26 months to obtain legal residency through the program, as opposed to several years for other visa programs.
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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.
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“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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.