EB-5 investors introduce new project in Atlanta Georgia

American Life Inc. is pleased to introduce their newest project located in Atlanta EB-5 Regional Center in Atlanta. 

 

Several key points to the project are:
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            ·         3405 BB Parkway LP, a Washington Limited Partnership managed by American Life, Inc. will develop and own a six story mid-rise Hilton Hotel in Atlanta, Georgia.  The hotel consists of a 122-room Homewood Suites by Hilton Hotels.  This Homewood Suites would be one of only two upscale extended stay hotels serving the Atlanta Airport once it opens in 2013. 

·         The hotel is located in close proximity to Atlanta Hartsfield Airport Jackson International Airport (ATL).  The airport is the busiest airport in the world, by passenger traffic and number of landings and take-offs since 2005, serving 89 million passengers a year.  The $1.4 Billion expansion of the international terminal is on schedule to open in spring of 2012 opening up 12 additional gates. 

·         The Project will be capitalized with approximately $17.6 million of equity consisting of EB-5 and U.S. investors. ·         The Project is located in a TEA within the Atlanta EB-5 Regional Center and qualifies for property tax abatement. ·         Construction is projected to commence in June 2012 and grand opening of the Hotel on or about October 2013. ·         Investors receive 70 percent of the net hotel income and 70 percent of the capital gain upon sale.  The projected yield is approximately 5.5 percent to the investor upon stabilization.  Investors should budget for a five to seven year holding period at which time, depending upon market conditions, the Project may be either be sold or refinanced. Individual investors also may choose to sell his/her own Partnership interest.  Any of these events will be subject to market conditions.  An investment in the Partnership involves complex tax issues and substantial risks, including reliance on management, general market risks, limited transferability of Interests, reliance on the services of third parties and other matters. 

American life, Inc. has managed and operated the regional center in Seattle since 1996 and 3405 LP offering will be one of several equity and loan based Offerings that will be offered in our regional centers located in Western Washington State, Southern California, Upstate New York, Atlanta and Miami in 2011 and 2012. 

More information at www.amlife.us

E Visa Office Holiday Schedule for 2011/2012

Embassy of the United States of America

Visa Branch, 5 Upper Grosvenor Street, London, W1A 2JB

NONIMMIGRANT E VISA UNIT

Dear E Treaty Visa Applicant/Personal Representative,

 

We are writing in connection with the intermittent holiday schedule for the Christmas and New Year period for 2011/2012. This is to advise that the Nonimmigrant E treaty visa office will be closed on December 23, 2011, through to January 3, 2012.

 

The last available interview date for authorized appointments scheduled through the Operator Assisted Information Service for the employees and their derivative dependants of an approved treaty company in valid registered status with the US Embassy London will be on December 22, 2011.  The first available appointment for 2012 will be on January 3, 2012.

 

For prospective treaty investors and traders invited by our office to arrange their interview by email, the last available appointment date for a treaty company pending adjudication at the US Embassy London will be on December 19, 2011, the first available appointment for 2012 will be on January 9, 2012.

 

Normal service will resume for all Nonimmigrant E treaty visa applicants at 8.00am on January 9, 2012.

 

The E treaty visa applicants are advised to please plan any travel during this period accordingly to avoid delays and the inconvenience of a needless journey.

 

We would like to take this opportunity to wish you happy holidays and a wonderful New Year.

 

Sincerely,

 

E Visa Team

American Embassy

London

Foreigners’ Sweetener: Buy House, Get a Visa

Originally published in the Wall Street Journal by NICK TIMIRAOS

The reeling housing market has come to this: To shore it up, two Senators are preparing to introduce a bipartisan bill Thursday that would give residence visas to foreigners who spend at least $500,000 to buy houses in the U.S.
The provision is part of a larger package of immigration measures, co-authored by Sens. Charles Schumer (D., N.Y.) and Mike Lee (R., Utah), designed to spur more foreign investment in the U.S.

Supporters of the bill, co-authored by Sen. Charles Schumer, say it would help make up for American buyers who are holding back.

Foreigners have accounted for a growing share of home purchases in South Florida, Southern California, Arizona and other hard-hit markets. Chinese and Canadian buyers, among others, are taking advantage not only of big declines in U.S. home prices and reduced competition from Americans but also of favorable foreign exchange rates.
To fuel this demand, the proposed measure would offer visas to any foreigner making a cash investment of at least $500,000 on residential real-estate—a single-family house, condo or townhouse. Applicants can spend the entire amount on one house or spend as little as $250,000 on a residence and invest the rest in other residential real estate, which can be rented out.
The measure would complement existing visa programs that allow foreigners to enter the U.S. if they invest in new businesses that create jobs. Backers believe the initiative would help soak up an excess supply of inventory when many would-be American home buyers are holding back because they’re concerned about their jobs or because they would have to take a big loss to sell their current house.
“This is a way to create more demand without costing the federal government a nickel,” Sen. Schumer said in an interview.
International buyers accounted for around $82 billion in U.S. residential real-estate sales for the year ending in March, up from $66 billion during the previous year period, according to data from the National Association of Realtors. Foreign buyers accounted for at least 5.5% of all home sales in Miami and 4.3% of Phoenix home sales during the month of July, according to MDA DataQuick.
Foreigners immigrating to the U.S. with the new visa wouldn’t be able to work here unless they obtained a regular work visa through the normal process. They’d be allowed to bring a spouse and any children under the age of 18 but they wouldn’t be able to stay in the country legally on the new visa once they sold their properties.

The provision would create visas that are separate from current programs so as to not displace anyone waiting for other visas. There would be no cap on the home-buyer visa program.
Over the past year, Canadians accounted for one quarter of foreign home buyers, and buyers from China, Mexico, Great Britain, and India accounted for another quarter, according to the National Association of Realtors. For buyers from some countries, restrictive immigration rules are “a deterrent to purchase here, for sure,” says Sally Daley, a real-estate agent in Vero Beach, Fla. She estimates that around one-third of her sales this year have gone to foreigners, an all-time high.
“Without them, we would be stagnant,” says Ms. Daley. “They’re hiring contractors, buying furniture, and they’re also helping the market correct by getting inventory whittled down.”
In March, Ms. Daley sold a four-bedroom vacation home in a gated community to Harry Morrison, a Canadian from Lakefield, Ontario. “House prices were going down, and you could still make a lot of money on the exchange rate,” said Mr. Morrison, who first bought a home in Vero Beach four years ago.
While a special visa would allow Canadian buyers like Mr. Morrison to spend more time in the U.S., he said he’s not sure “what other benefit a visa would give me.”
The idea has some high-profile supporters, including Warren Buffett, who this summer floated the idea of encouraging more “rich immigrants” to buy homes. “If you wanted to change your immigration policy so that you let 500,000 families in but they have to have a significant net worth and everything, you’d solve things very quickly,” Mr. Buffett said in an August interview with PBS’s Charlie Rose.
The measure could also help turn around buyer psychology, said mortgage-bond pioneer Lewis Ranieri. He said the program represented “triage” for a housing market that needs more fixes, even modest ones.
But other industry executives greeted the proposal with skepticism. Foreign buyers “don’t need an incentive” to buy homes, said Richard Smith, chief executive of Realogy Corp., which owns the Coldwell Banker and Century 21 real-estate brands. “We have a lot of Americans who are willing to buy. We just have to fix the economy.”
The measure may have a more targeted effect in exclusive markets like San Marino, Calif., that have become popular with foreigners. Easier immigration rules could be “tremendous” because of the difficulty many Chinese buyers have in obtaining visas, says Maggie Navarro, a local real-estate agent.
Ms. Navarro recently sold a home for $1.67 million, around 8% above the asking price, to a Chinese national who works in the mining industry. She says nearly every listing she’s put on the market in San Marino “has had at least one full price cash offer from a buyer from mainland China.”

DV-2013 DV Lottery | Diversity Immigrant Visa Program

WHAT IS IT?

The Diversity Lottery program is an annual lottery run by the U.S. Department of State. The DV Lottery offers up to 55,000 permanent resident visas each year to randomly selected applicants from eligible countries.  For the fiscal year 2012, 50,000 DV’s were available.

WHEN DOES IT START?

The Lottery is run once a year and qualified applicants are randomly chosen by computer.  The online registration period for the 2013 Diversity Visa Program (DV-2013) will begin on Tuesday, October 4, 2011, at noon, Eastern Daylight Time (EDT) (GMT-4), and conclude on Saturday, November 5, 2011, at noon, Eastern Daylight Time (EDT) (GMT-4).

WHO IS ELIGIBLE?

The annual DV program makes visas available to persons meeting simple, but strict, eligibility requirements. A computer-generated, random lottery drawing chooses selectees for DVs. The visas are distributed among six geographic regions, with a greater number of visas going to regions with lower rates of immigration, and with no visas going to nationals of countries sending more than 50,000 immigrants to the United States over the period of the past five years. Within each region, no single country may receive more than seven percent of the available DVs in any one year.

For DV-2012, natives of the following countries were not eligible to apply because the countries sent a total of more than 50,000 immigrants to the United States in the previous five years:  BRAZIL, CANADA, CHINA (mainland-born), COLOMBIA, DOMINICAN REPUBLIC, ECUADOR, EL SALVADOR, GUATEMALA, HAITI, INDIA, JAMAICA, MEXICO, PAKISTAN, PERU, PHILIPPINES, POLAND, SOUTH KOREA, UNITED KINGDOM (except Northern Ireland) and its dependent territories, and VIETNAM.

For DV-2013, natives of South Sudan and Poland are now eligible for selection, while Bangladesh natives are now ineligible.

WHAT ARE THE REQUIREMENTS FOR ENTRY?

To enter the DV lottery, you must be a native of one of the listed countries.  Native of a country whose natives qualify: In most cases, this means the country in which you were born. However, there are two other ways you may be able to qualify.  First, if you were born in a country whose natives are ineligible but your spouse was born in a country whose natives are eligible, you can claim your spouse’s country of birth—provided that both you and your spouse are on the selected entry, are issued visas, and enter the United States simultaneously.  Second, if you were born in a country whose natives are ineligible, but neither of your parents was born there or resided there at the time of your birth, you may claim nativity in one of your parents’ countries of birth if it is a country whose natives qualify for the DV-2013 program.

The law and regulations require that every diversity visa entrant must have at least:

• A high school education or its equivalent; or
• Two years of work experience within the past five years in an occupation requiring at least two years’ training or experience.

To learn more about qualifying occupations, see the Diversity Visa Instructions Frequently Asked Questions and the List of Occupations webpage.

If you cannot meet either of these requirements, you should NOT submit an entry to the DV program. 

MUST I SUBMIT MY OWN ENTRY, OR MAY SOMEONE ACT ON MY BEHALF? 

You may prepare and submit your own entry, or have someone submit the entry for you. Regardless of whether an entry is submitted by the individual directly, or assistance is provided by an attorney, friend, relative, etc., only one entry may be submitted in the name of each person, and the entrant remains responsible for ensuring that information in the entry is correct and complete.

Jaensch Immigration Law Firm offers both lottery submission support and application for permanent residence after lottery selection.  It can process a lottery submission for an eligible candidate for $150 per person. As a part of its service, the law firm evaluates whether the person meets the lottery requirements and whether the person will meet the admissibility requirements should they be selected in the lottery.
The firm’s lottery registration page is located at www.visaamerica.com/greencard.

USCIS Blog on Preparing Individuals for the Citizenship Test

USCIS Beacon blog post provides information and an overview of the process for individuals who are preparing to take the naturalization test, including what to expect during the interview, how to prepare and self-test, retesting, and more.

USCIS INITIATIVES FOR ENREPRENEURS (AND SOME BIG PREMIUM PROCESSING NEWS)

The USCIS issued the following press release about its new initiatives for entrepreneurs:  http://www.dhs.gov/ynews/releases/20110802-napolitano-startup-job-creation-initiatives.shtm

The USCIS issued a Q&A addressing how an entrepreneur can qualify for an EB-2 green card as an advanced degreed professional or alien with exceptional ability in the arts, sciences or business and explains how PERM Labor Certification can be avoided if the applicant qualifies for a National Interest Waiver: http://www.uscis.gov/portal/site/uscis/template.PRINT/menuitem.5af9bb95919f35e66f614176543f6d1a/?vgnextoid=93da6b814ba81310VgnVCM100000082ca60aRCRD&vgnextchannel=6abe6d26d17df110VgnVCM1000004718190aRCRD

The USCIS issued a Q&A about an earlier issued Memorandum on Establishing the “Employee-Employer Relationship” in H-1B Petitions: http://www.uscis.gov/portal/site/uscis/template.PRINT/menuitem.5af9bb95919f35e66f614176543f6d1a/?vgnextoid=3d015869c9326210VgnVCM100000082ca60aRCRD&vgnextchannel=6abe6d26d17df110VgnVCM1000004718190aRCRD

At this point, the released documents do not reveal much new policy, but they may be a sign of a new willingness by USCIS to consider employment creators and others who benefit the economy in a newer, more favorable light in immigration applications.

Some highlights of the released documents are:

1.      The press releases indicates that USCIS will complement these FAQs with internal training on the unique characteristics of entrepreneurial enterprises and startup companies and incorporate input from the upcoming stakeholder engagements

2.      The Q&A on employee-employer relationships indicates that such a relationship may be established even of the sponsored worker owns the employer “if the facts show that there is a right to control by the petitioner over the employment of the beneficiary, then a valid employer-employee relationship may be established. For example, if the petitioner provides evidence that there is a separate Board of Directors which has the ability to hire, fire, pay, supervise or otherwise control the beneficiary, the petitioner may be able to establish an employer-employee relationship with the beneficiary.”

3.      The press release indicates that USCIS is developing a phased plan to roll out the EB-5 enhancements proposed in May (including Premium Processing) and is poised to begin implementing the first of these enhancements within 30 days.

4.      The press release indicates that USCIS has announced the expansion of its Premium Processing Service to immigrant petitions for multinational executives and managers (often referred to as “E13″). The Premium Processing Service allows employers to expedite processing of their petitions, absent evidentiary deficiencies, fraud or national security concerns.

USCIS Reportedly to Announce Today Administrative Fix Plan for Employment-Based Immigrants

• Report indicates that the USCIS Director disclosed yesterday that he will unveil today a plan to make it easier for some foreigners to qualify for legal permanent residence, or green cards, if they can demonstrate their work will be in the U.S. national interest. The changes will also include a way for entrepreneurs to obtain work visas without a job offer from an established company. Reportedly he also plans to announce that USCIS will be training its examiners on how visa-eligibility requirements apply to entrepreneurs. As part of the new initiatives, foreign entrepreneurs will be eligible for a so-called EB-2 immigrant visa without a specific job offer, as long as they demonstrate that their business endeavors will be in the U.S. national interest. As part of the new measures, a sole entrepreneur can also qualify for an H-1B if the individual’s employment is decided by a corporate board or shareholders of the start-up company. The USCIS is reportedly also seeking to speed up the approval process by hiring additional adjudicators to evaluate applications and enabling petitioners to make their case before an expert panel should their application require further evidence or be denied. The moves apparently come as demand for H-1B visas has fallen.

Click here for article from Wall Street Journal—

USCIS releases EB-1 Statistics for Fiscal Years 2010 and 2011 (YTD)

The USCIS released information about the number of EB-1 green card petition Approvals, Denials and Request for Evidence for Fiscal Years 2010 – 2011 (year to date).  The data covers fiscal year 2010 (October 1, 2009, to September 30 , 2010) and fiscal year 2011 year to date (October 1, 2010, to July 19, 2011).

In the report:

1. E11 is an immigrant classification for an alien with extraordinary ability

2. E12 is an immigrant classification for an outstanding professor or researcher

3. E13 is an immigrant classification for a multinational executive or manager

The report shows that a total of 30,688 EB-1 petitions were received during the 22 month period and that 10,753 petitions received Requests for Evidence and that 5,887 were denied.

The report does not clearly show how many EB-1 petitions are still pending.  The report also does not show the distribution of denials during the period.  We believe that there has been a significant increase in Requests for Evidence and Denials of EB-1 cases in recent months.

Organization Aims To Boost Latin Leadership

Organization Aims To Boost Latin Leadership
Jacob Ogles, Jacob.Ogles@srqmediagroup.com

Census estimates indicate roughly a fifth of Sarasota’s population claims an Hispanic heritage, but political involvement by that community remains remarkably low. A new non-profit is trying to change that.

Former Sarasota Mayor Kelly Kirshner is working to launch Unidos Now, an organization focused on increasing the political voice of Hispanics. “We need to start engaging the community in a nonpartisan fashion,” he said. “If we have such population growth and are not embracing that and drawing it in, that’s going to have deleterious effects on the quality of government.”

Kirschner, who in the past has tried to actively get more Hispanic voters involve in City politics, was discouraged when Sarasota officials established citizen oversight committees in response to a police scandal which involved treatment of an Hispanic person, then there were no applications from any Hispanics living within the City limits to participate on the boards.

He also noted that Sarasota saw a remarkably low turnout among Hispanics in the recent City elections. A District 1 Commissioner race in May drew out just 23 Hispanic voters, which was just 5 more than participated in a March election in that district.

“We have a really large legal Hispanic population, but few of them are even registered (to vote), and the participation rates among those voters is very low,” he said.

Website for E2 Treaty Investor Visa Clients who want Visa Reform.

Do you have E2 Treaty Investor Visa Clients? Would they like to see reform for the visa so they can apply for Green Cards? If so, please read on………………..

We are a group of E2 Visa Holders who are actively lobbying the Government to try and make it possible to apply for Green Cards from this visa. We have been working for 4 years and have had 2 Bills in Congress, but they have not made much headway. We are trying to reach out to many E2 Treaty Investor Visa Holders around the US to help us in our efforts. The more of us working together, contacting our own Members of Congress and Senators, the more chance we have of bringing about change. This is where YOU can help. If you have E2 Clients, please could you forward this e-mail on to them, and we hope they will, in turn, contact us. Our main website is www.E2VisaReform.org We also have an E2 Map, where many visa holders have already added themselves at – www.E2VisaHolder.com As you can see we have a great covering in Florida but not so many in the rest of the US. and an E2 Visa Supporters page, where we have asked for messages of support we can share at - www.E2VisaSupporters.org

We thank you very much if you are able to help us and if you would like to know more, please get in touch. We would also love to know if you have received this e-mail, so a response will be much appreciated, even if you don’t have any E2 clients. Best wishes Zoe Adams E2VisaReform.org 863 709 9555