Some thoughts from Jose Latour
[Let's be honest: we ALL know I can be quite long-winded. In attempt to respect your weekend and save you time, there is a SHORT version of my point first, followed by a LONG version (for those of you who just can't get enough of my big words and blahblahblah....(-; Have a GREAT weekend! ]
SHORT VERSION:
PROBLEM: USCIS EB-5 processing has taken another dramatic step into slow motion, so bad that the U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) has agreed to investigate the situation. At the same time, the EB-5 Regional Center Program is at an existential crisis, with one giant, powerful lobby wanting to continue to pretend the wealthiest places in America are TEAs and need more condo skyscrapers while their abuse is so pervasive that it is impossible to ignore.
SOLUTION: Forget Regional Center projects and instead make a DIRECT EB-5 investment in which your investment creates 10 real full time jobs and your green card doesn’t depend on the endless political mess that the RC program has come to represent. LatourLaw has a number of proven and vetted U.S. companies, most with jobs already created and bridge loans which can be replaced with EB-5 investor funds...as in you’ll have the 10 jobs you need in two years before you invest. Contact our Miami or Vietnam offices for more information on how LatourLaw can help you navigate a faster, safer path to your family’s U.S. permanent residency!
LONG VERSION:
If you are not an American, you probably never heard of “Chicken Little”, a childrens’ story. Chicken Little, a nervous chap, spent most of his time worrying that the sky was about to fall. In his panic, he kept running around telling everyone “The sky is falling, the sky is falling!” Well, the sky was NOT falling so after their first few panicked responses, Chicken Little’s nervous cries were completely ignored by everyone.
It is somewhat disconcerting, dear readers, to realized that I myself have inadvertently made myself the “Chicken Little” of immigration: for the past 4-5 years, I have faithfully reported to you on the imminent demise of the EB-5 Regional Center Pilot Program, told you that based on pending regulations it was going to be cancelled, then that it was going to be extended ONLY for a month ( and then extended again and again), that the price was doubling/tripling, yadda yadda. Each time, I have done so in good faith relaying the best information I could glean from government sources, brilliant EB-5 thinkers like my friend Suzanne at LucidText, and the smartest lawyers and industry players I know. The message has always been pretty much the same: “If you want EB-5, get in NOW at the $500,000 TEA level because soon the program will end/the prices will go way up/there will be no more visas/etc. But, like Chicken Little, so far I’ve been wrong.
Sorry about that, my intentions have been noble.(-:
In any event, the situation remains EXACTLY the same today, with the powerful IIUSA EB-5 lobby exclusively representing the interests of the giant urban Regional Centers who rely on false TEA claims and illegal payment of finders fees to scoop up investors abroad fighting like hell to preserve the status quote, a few of us who actually have successful and proving TEA projects complaining but unheard in the background, and bewildered regulators and legislators contemplating multiple versions of the so-called “reform” bills which to more to ensure the continued abuse of EB-5 than to fix anything.
As American Venture Solutions closes the last few existing EB-5 investor slots and ponder whether we even WANT to launch another project, I am finding myself more and more inclined to tell people to just forget the Regional Center projects which make up 95+% of EB-5 visa investments and invest in a direct EB-5 business. Whether you want to start a new US business and run it yourself or whether you want to invest in a proven US business that we’ve vetted and know well, you can remove the vast majority of EB-5 risk by simply staying out of the hornet’s nest that the Regional Center program has become.
LatourLaw is opening new E-2 franchises for Grenada passport holders which are structured in ADVANCE to grow into direct EB-5 investments in a few years. We are working with partner accounting firms and identifying the very best of their small business clients, businesses whose books they have administered over many years, to identify great businesses who either have an owner ready to retire/cash out or, more often, looking for passive investors to enter the next phase of growth. We have restaurants, we have yacht charter companies, we have hotels, we have car dealers...all companies our accountant partners have been handling for years so that we know that the financials are REAL and the investment is not another EB-5 scam.
I’ll be in Saigon in two weeks to place our first few direct EB-5 investor slots; in July, -Monica, Laura and I will be in Washington, D.C. , working with our Vietnamese-American partners to launch a series of new Direct EB-5 programs involving new franchises with “hands off” management scenarios for our investors. If you want an easier, faster way to get your family to the US permanently, give LatourLaw Vietnam a call...we’ve got some good ideas we’d love to share with you!
Best, Jose
