美国彭博社新闻6月9日报道，刊登了一篇名为“外国人通过投资不动产获得美国居留权”的文章，文章中讲述了近年一些国际投资者通过创造就业和启动不动产的投资来获得美国的居留权。文中提到了EB-5投资移民是进入美国的一个快速通道，但并不是所有投资的都能成功，例如某基金公司把EB5投资人原本说投资到建材公司的钱挪用于牛扒屋的投资，最终导致申请人的永久居民签证申请被拒。
    文章中还指出，美国生活公司是一家从1996年开始运作EB-5投资移民项目，并成功帮助了超过一千名投资者成功移民美国的公司。该公司现在正在为一个洛杉矶万豪酒店项目募集资金，该项目从Real Capital Analytics Inc（一家专注于资本投资市场商业房地产的独立调查公司）的数据分析显示，是较低风险的项目。….
原文如下：
Visas Lure Foreigners Seeking U.S. Residency Through Real Estate

By John Gittelsohn
June 9 (Bloomberg) -- International investors are helping
to create jobs and jumpstart real estate projects in exchange
for a path to U.S. residency, with applications for a government
program granting special visas poised to double this year.
The EB-5 visa program teams developers with overseas
investors who put up at least $500,000 for projects that create
a minimum of 10 jobs. Convention centers, resorts, office
buildings and shopping malls are attracting the most cash as
builders seek an alternative to bank loans, which became tougher
to get as defaults rose, according to Peter Joseph, executive
director of the Association to Invest in the USA.
“Commercial real estate is absolutely, hands down, the
largest recipient of this capital,” said Joseph, whose Chicago-
based trade group represents public and private agencies that
pool money from investors seeking visas. “It’s incredibly
useful money, cash ready to put to use.”
Applications for EB-5 visas jumped to 1,955 in the year
ended Sept. 30, up from 1,031 in fiscal 2009, according to U.S.
Citizenship and Immigration Services. For 2011, there have
already been 1,927 applications submitted in the first half of
the fiscal year. Chinese investors are leading the requests.
The visas will raise $1.25 billion this year and create or
save 25,000 jobs, Joseph’s group estimates, up from $845 million
and 17,000 jobs in 2010. The program may reach its annual limit
of 10,000 visas for investors and their families for the first
time in 2013, he said. That cap represents 2.46 percent of the
average number of U.S. immigration visas approved per month
since 2005.

Lending Curtailed

Lenders tightened construction financing after Lehman
Brothers Holdings Inc.’s bankruptcy in September 2008 deepened
the global credit crisis. U.S. banks’ outstanding loans for
construction and development projects totaled $272 billion as of
March 31, down 52 percent from the first quarter of 2008, as
their delinquency rate soared to almost 17 percent, according to
data from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.
The visa program is “a great alternate source of capital”
for developers, said Thomas Rosenfeld, chief executive officer
of CanAm Enterprises Inc. The company, based in New York, has
raised $1 billion through 19 partnerships and helped 1,500
investors qualify for U.S. residency.
“With the cutbacks that are happening, cities are telling
us we’re one of the more important programs they have right now
to create jobs,” Rosenfeld said in a telephone interview.

3,100 Jobs

CanAm raised $122 million from 244 foreign investors in
2008, as credit was drying up, to help finish the Pennsylvania
Convention Center in Philadelphia, he said. The $1.12 billion
project created almost 3,100 jobs in a city where unemployment
was 9.3 percent in April, the most recent month for which data
is available, compared with a U.S. rate of 9 percent.
“Without our capital, they would’ve had to stop
construction,” said Rosenfeld, whose company runs centers for
investor partnerships in four states.
The EB-5 program, created by Congress in 1990, has
generated at least $4.48 billion in foreign investment,
including $1.93 billion since 2008, according to Citizenship and
Immigration Services data.
Investors must present a business plan showing how their
cash will create sustainable jobs. They are required to put in
at least $500,000 for development in high unemployment and rural
areas, and at least $1 million elsewhere.
After the plan is approved and the money invested,
applicants and their dependents are granted temporary residency.
If after two years investors demonstrate they have created 10
jobs -- directly or based on approved economic models -- they
qualify to become permanent residents with green card status.

Pools of Capital

More than 80 percent of investors apply for visas through
projects coordinated by regional centers approved by Citizenship
and Immigration Services, enabling developers to assemble large
pools of capital through limited partnerships. As of June 1, 142
centers operated in 40 states, the District of Columbia and
Guam. That compares with 11 centers in 2007.
While the agency doesn’t provide a dollar breakdown of
investments by industry, 116 of the regional centers are
approved for real estate and are raising money to build such
projects as a charter school in Arizona, ski lodges in Vermont,
a water park in San Diego and an auto plant in Alabama.
Industries including alternative energy, entertainment, food
processing, health care and shipbuilding also have approved
investment plans.

Chinese Investors

Investors from China submitted 3,483 visa applications
since 2008 and received 1,955 temporary residency permits, the
most of any country, according to Citizenship and Immigration
Services. Korea, the U.K., Iran and India complete the top five.
“Economies overseas, especially in China, have been
growing very, very fast,” said Brian Su, CEO of Artisan
Business Group Inc. in Springfield, Illinois, which helps
developers find investors from Asia. “There are more people
with cash and the United States is the most desired destination
for Chinese parents. The investors are coming here for their
kids’ education.”
Interest in the program is picking up in Venezuela and
Mexico, where wealthy families seek a haven from political,
social and economic instability, said Enrique Gonzalez III, an
attorney with Fragomen, Del Rey, Bernsen & Loewy LLP, a law firm
that specializes in immigration matters.
Two-year residency visas for investors and their immediate
families are usually processed within nine months, he said. In
May, Immigration Services circulated a plan to speed up
approvals, granting visa status to “shovel ready” proposals
within 15 days.

‘Quickest Way’

“It’s the quickest way to get a visa if you don’t have a
sponsor, such as an employer or a family member,” Gonzalez said
in a phone interview from his office in Coral Gables, Florida.
Success isn’t guaranteed. Of 15,646 initial applications,
30 percent have been denied two-year residency permits. For the
6,399 investors who qualified to apply for long-term residency,
19 percent were rejected.
Last year, Immigration Services denied permanent visas for
investors in a CanAm project in Philadelphia because the money
was used to build a steakhouse rather than the original plan for
a building-materials company. CanAm is challenging the denials
in federal court, claiming the visas were pulled “because the
agency applied a newly issued guidance memo retroactively,”
Rosenfeld said.

Rejected Applications

Such incidents show that Immigration Services sometimes
stands in the way of more investment and job creation, said Ira
Kurzban, an immigration attorney with Kurzban, Kurzban, Weinger,
Tetzeli and Pratt PA in Miami.
“It is a classic example of an agency being overly and
unnecessarily focused on fraud and the most restrictive
interpretation they can give the law,” Kurzban said. “In the
current economic environment, the agency should strike a balance
between preventing fraud and encouraging investment and job
creation.”
Citizenship and Immigration Services administers the
program “through two lenses,” creating jobs through foreign
investment and ensuring visas go to residents who play by the
rules, said Luz Irazabal, a spokeswoman for the agency in
Washington.
“We want to make sure these are legal, licensed businesses
operating in the U.S.,” she said in a telephone interview.
The ratio of visa approvals to denials for temporary
residency was 8.3-to-1 last year, up from 3.3-to-1 in 2007. In
the first half of this year, the ratio fell to 3.8-to-1, a
period too short to establish a trend, according to Irazabal.

Limited Liquidity

Property investments through the program are often limited
partnerships, requiring a minimum five-year commitment with
little liquidity and no guarantee of a profit, said Henry
Liebman, president and co-founder of American Life Inc., a
Seattle-based company that runs regional centers for 33 real
estate projects in five states.
The company is seeking to raise $118 million from EB-5
applicants for a 377-room Marriott hotel in Los Angeles.
Investors can expect a 6.42 percent annual return after the
hotel achieves rent stabilization in 2016, according to the
prospectus. That’s a similar yield to investments in hotels that
have already been developed and are therefore less risky,
according to data from Real Capital Analytics Inc.
American Life has raised $560.4 million since 1996, helping
more than 1,000 investors become U.S. residents. It’s soliciting
another $163 million in funds, including the Marriott money. All
the recent cash has come from EB-5 applicants, Liebman said, a
change from the pre-Lehman bankruptcy era.
“Before the bust it was slightly more immigrant than
domestic money,” he said in a telephone interview from Seattle.
“After the bust, it’s virtually all immigrant.”

原文链接地址：http://about.bgov.com/2011/06/09/top-bloomberg-government-stories-51/