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…

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…

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…

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, …

Earlier this year I had the privilege of co-authoring ILW.COM's 2009-2010 Edition of The Consular Posts Book, edited by Rami Fakhoury.  Actually, "co-authoring" is a bit grandiose and exaggerated: I wrote the section on visa processing in Port Au Prince, Haiti.  Still, it had been awhile since anything I'd written made it beyond the digital domain, so it was kind of cool when I received the book in the mail this past June.To my surprise – and I can only imagine what Rami and staff went through trying to get dozens of lawyers to actually meet authorship deadlines – the new handbook did not contain any information on visa processing in Mexico.  While some more esoteric posts made the list (Armenia and Vietnam, for example), our neighbor to the south went un…

The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday that Obama's new chief of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has announced an intensified crackdown on U.S. employers who hire unauthorized workers.  John Morton, new head of ICE (which is part of the Department of Homeland Security) told the Journal that the agency  is "set to increase the number of companies it will audit and systematically impose fines on violators."  He added that these violations — as most of my regular readers well know — can also lead to criminal charges.Folks, I am feeling less and less like Chicken LIttle and more and more like Nostradamus.  I am not going to bore you by yet AGAIN quoting myself from blogs I've written since President Obama was elected, but, frankly, t…

So much for banking privacy at UBS: pursuant to terms of the Swiss-USG tax-evasion overhaul/settlement, the Wall Street Journal reported today that UBS AG will be handing over some 4,450 names of U.S. account holders.  Both governements had cut the deal with UBS last week but the final settlement terms were not disclosed publicly till this morning.It probably gives investors little solace that, according to the WSJ, that UBS will most likely not pay any fines as part of the deal. While everyone agrees that tax "evasion" schemes are illegal, as someone who has been involved in international business for a very long time I know all too well that in the zeal for prosecutable examples, governments will too hastily label a legitimate tax-planning vehicle as "evasion"……

NOTE: The sole purpose of today’s blog is so that I can brag about my foresight, so skip it unless you are curious…I wrote this last November, when the surreal specter of propping up the private auto sector had reached a frenzy.  My point was simple: let the consumers get the money and decide.  While the $4500 “Cash for Clunkers” credit is far more generous than the modest $625 I proposed in my hypothetical, and while the ability to buy new foreign cars was more than I’d proposed, it is SOOOOO nice to see an administration in office which thinks rationally.  What I wrote then:This one is simple, though the relevance to immigration is, uh, vague:-The government is giving the auto industry $25 billion dollars-There are about 200 million drivers in the U.S.-That breaks down t…

One of the funny things about discussing offshore investment is that we forget a very basic fact: not ALL Americans who invest offshore are up to shenanigans.  Some U.S. citizens (and foreign nationals who are U.S. tax residents and, accordingly,  taxable worldwide) in fact, make a great business of offshore investing…and the IRS doesn't blink an eye.I had an interesting chat with Fernando today regarding this and, as usual, his explanation was very enlightening.. (Fernando Reategui, for those of you who don't know, is the Managing Director of Private Client Insurance Advisors, LLC, my business colleague, office partner, and very dear friend.)  I am currently looking at innovative tax planning structures for some high net worth individuals who have come my way, s…