The evolution of the EB-5 scheme has angered some of those offering traditional investments to immigrants.
There were 7, 641 visas issued through the EB-5 program in 2012, a record year.
Virginia was particularly alarmed by GreenTech's use of an opaque visa program, called EB-5, to fund itself.
Hotel executives say that the projects getting funded by EB-5 would be financially viable without the program.
In addition, investments under EB-5 primarily go toward existing projects, with the immigrant investor serving as a limited partner.
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Over the summer, the Citizenship and Immigration Services streamlined the EB-5 process further.
Another would be to expand the existing EB-5 visa program for immigrant investors.
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Since the credit crunch, there has also been a dramatic increase in the number of U.S. companies seeking EB-5 funding.
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The proposed immigrant entrepreneur visa is separate and fundamentally different from the current EB-5 (the fifth employment-based preference) immigrant investor visa.
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Henry Liebman is chief executive of American Life, a Seattle-based real estate company that manages around 15% of all EB-5 projects nationwide.
The cases of fraud discovered by government agencies in the current EB-5 investor visa have focused on facilitators, not the principal immigrants.
The DHS and CIS reforms will also affect EB-2 and EB-5 visas.
Now, developers of some projects are covering more than 60% of the project's cost entirely with EB-5 proceeds, allowing them to take bigger risks.
Purchasing a home is often the largest investment most Americans make: The definition for the EB-5 should be expanded to include purchases of residential property.
Tabarrok suggests that visas like the EB-5 should be adjusted to count home purchases as an investment that earns a green card for the investor.
Neither the immigration agency, nor GreenTech or Gulf Coast, has divulged how much money the company has raised via EB-5, or how many visas it has issued.
Hilton Worldwide Inc. executives said that roughly 3% of the 560 Hilton-branded hotels currently under development in the U.S. are financed at least in part with EB-5 proceeds.
Last year, 2, 480 immigrants got their green cards via EB-5.
Congress started the EB-5 program during the recession of 1990.
FORBES: Job Creation Program Stretches Claims About Low-Income Neighborhoods
An EB-5 visa was a viable option for my friend.
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In May, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services proposed to streamline the EB-5 visa process, designed for immigrant investors and entrepreneurs who create at least 10 U.S. jobs.
It seems the entire EB-5 program needs an overhaul.
FORBES: Job Creation Program Stretches Claims About Low-Income Neighborhoods
The Immigrant Investor Programme, also known as EB-5, was set up in 1990 to lure in foreigners by giving them the right to live and work there permanently if they created jobs.
This would be similar to the EB-5 program, which gives green cards to rich foreigners who invest in the U.S. This would allow non-rich immigrants to make an investment in the region sponsoring their visa.
The Times takes a close look at how the visa program, known as EB-5, operates in New York state, and finds that developers often configure project districts to make it appear as though they lie in neighborhoods with high unemployment.
FORBES: Job Creation Program Stretches Claims About Low-Income Neighborhoods
To attract financing under the EB-5 program, the developer, Forest City Ratner, has claimed the project is going up in an oddly-shaped zone that stretches more than two miles from the site and includes low-income parts of Crown Heights and Bedford-Stuyvesant.
FORBES: Job Creation Program Stretches Claims About Low-Income Neighborhoods
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