All Abuzz About Regional Centers

The momentum is palpable: Roger and I are spending the better part of our days dealing with three sets of inquiries:1- U.S. Developers and Project Managers considering an EB-5 structure to finance their projects with foreign capital;2- Attorneys and Investment Advisors with foreign clients who are intrigued about the new EB-5 Regional Center opportunities and, naturally;3- Foreign investors who are reading the blogs and want to know more.Next week our EB-5 team travels to Venezuela to begin our international series of presentations on the EB-5 opportunities available in the U.S. to qualified foreign investors.These days, a $500,000 investment to secure permanent residency in the U.S. for yourself and your loved ones seems to make a whole lot more sense than spending tha…

Cause and Effect: Illegal Cuban Migration is Down

The Miami Herald reported this morning that the number of Cubans attempting to illegally enter the U.S. has dropped dramatically in the past year.  Based upon what the U.S. Coast Guard has seen, the reason is that "fewer undocumented Cubans are leaving the island for the United States, not only through the traditional route across the Florida Straits but also through the newer route across the Yucatán Channel to the Mexican border." The change in number is indeed signficant:  the Herald reported that in the 12-month period between Oct. 1, 2007 and Sept. 30, 2008 almost 2,200 Cubans were interdicted at sea and almost 3,000 landed on beaches. With less than a week left for the same period in 2008-2009, less than 1,000 Cubans have been stopped at sea and less th…

EB-5 Investor Visas: Congressional Intent Manifested 20 Years Later

The following is an excerpt from the testimony of distinguished immigration attorney Stephen Yale-Loehr before the U.S. Senate's Committee on the Judiciary, July 22, 2009:"Congress created the fifth employment-based preference (EB-5) immigrant visa category in 1990 for immigrants seeking to enter to engage in a commercial enterprise that will benefit the U.S. economy and create at least 10 full-time jobs. The basic amount required to invest is $1 million, although that amount is reduced to $500,000 if the investment is made in a "targeted employment area," meaning a high unemployment or rural part of the United States. Of the approximately 10,000 numbers available for this preference each year, 3,000 are reserved for entrepreneurs who invest in targeted employment areas…

Rethinking “Ineffective Assistance” of Immigration Counsel

Yesterday I wrote about the astoundingly high percentage of immigration clients who walk through my door after having been ripped off, defrauded, or simply incompetently represented by an attorney, notario, or immigration consultant.  I told you that based upon what I've seen so far in 2009, 80% – that's four out of five – of my new clients have been victimized in such a fashion.  Today I'm going to discuss how this reality is being handled by our federal government, and why things need to be reexamined at the level of adjudications.First some background: in my years as visa officer, I had the opportunity to serve as Fraud Officer for the Stateside Criteria program in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico.  The program, long since terminated, permitted aliens who were marryin…

When it Really is the Immigration Lawyer’s Fault

Over the course of the past two decades of legal practice, I've observed a trend which, frankly, reflects poorly on my profession as an immigration attorney.  First, as a consular officer in Mexico, I was astounded almost daily at both the regularity of fundamental legal mistakes made by counsel for visa applicants and by their consistently adverserial responses when called on said mistakes.  (As the old saying goes, you can attract a lot more flies with honey than with vinegar, but attorney case inquiries directed at the consulate were, a majority of the time, pretty hostile.)It was not surprising, then, during the early years of private practice in Miami (1991-1993), to find that a significant portion of my clients were coming to me after they had …

Welcome…to the Machine

Well, today is the fifth day of my joining Bernstein Osberg-Braun & De Moraes and what a ride it's been so far.  It's been six-plus years since Lorenzo bought me out at Latour & Lleras and my first reentry into a "real" office environment (as opposed to working from home)…and smooth as silk.Roger Bernstein and I knew each other about a decade ago, and the coincidences which led me to contact him and, within hours, agree to work for him, are too many and too powerful to discuss in this blog.  It suffices to say that our stars seem to be very aligned and that joining forces – rather, this lone ranger joining the immigration Jedi's Roger and Linda (Osberg-Braun) have put together – is probably far more karmic than pragmatic…although the whol…

“YOU LIE!”- The Aftermath

Just a quick note since a few of you asked:  when I wrote yesterday's editorial regarding the epidemic stupidity in Washington and the fact that the various forms of pending legislation ALL prohibit medical benefits or subsidies to undocumented aliens, I didn't even KNOW about Rep. Joe Wilson's moronic and embarrassing outburst!In reality, I was baaaaad Obama supporter on Wednesday night, totally forgetting about his address to both houses of Congress, instead settling in with a good book and going to bed early.  When I wrote the blog, I had not heard about the "YOU LIE!" episode at all but it simply affirms what I've been saying all along, which is directed to ALL politicians regardless of party:The sheer volume and complexity of written legislation…

Don’t Buy the Lies: Illegal Aliens WILL NOT Get Free Healthcare

I'll tell you one thing: news travels FAST on the Internet, especially when it's nonsense.  Yesterday I received an email from my beloved brother in law, a hopeless conspiracy theorist, regarding the President's so-called foreign birth.  I actually read the whole thing out of curiosity, wondering what on earth NEW could have come out of this long-resolved foolishness.  The answer: nothing.  But the Web is full with regurgitated variations of the disproved allegations and a lot of folks are still rehashing the issue, facts be damned.Same thing with health care reform.  For the past few months I've had some pretty dynamic discussions with folks regarding the concept of a "national health care plan", which I initially championed but now a…

Revisiting the EB-5 with Eyes Wide Open

Those of you who've been reading me for awhile — as in from the "Port of Entry" days back when dinosaurs ruled the Internet — probably know that I have been rather, er, vocal about my opinion about the EB-5 Immigrant Investor visa, particularly the Pilot Program Regional Center investment vehicles.  The truth is that over the years, my encounters with Regional Center projects were invariably negative, triggered by would-be investors mortified to learn that their long-promised permanent residency had been denied, usually for reasons ranging to lack of capital risk to dubious job-creation evidence.  Each time, the solution was pretty much the same: an L-1/EB-1 structure would save the day.  In fact, as recently as several months ago, I again restated in this b…

Ripples from Broken RE Bubble Hobble Foreign Investors

The Wall Street Journal reported today that Mexico's prominent Cababie family, owners of the respected Grupo Gicsa developmentcompany, is "potentially on the hook for hundreds of millions of dollarsas a result of personal guarantees they made on loans used to financetwo major U.S. real-estate investments".Those of us who advise wealthy foreign clients have been cautiously monitoring the Miami's real estate market, looking for legitimate opportunities while remaining wary of what is still a very turbulent local RE economy.  Miami RE watchers all saw the news about last month's Chapter 11 filing by downtown's "Everglades on the Bay".  What many did NOT know is that most projects like Everglades, even those financed at the height of the boom, …