President-Elect Trump has said that he is not anti-immigration (his wife is foreign born, she will be our first foreign born first lady). He is anti-illegal immigration. He is also against legal immigration that displaces American workers, such as the H1-B program. As a policy, he should love EB-5. It does the opposite of what […]
This past Sunday, my family and I tried to make the most of a rainy weekend day in New York by enjoying what the city had to offer. My wife and I took our three children (son aged 11 and daughters aged five and seven), first to the New York Hall of Science in Queens, […]
The SEC has continued its flurry of EB-5 activity with its announcement today of fines and a cease and desist order against American Life and its President, Henry Liebman. At the heart of the SEC’s order against American Life and Liebman, “certain EB-5 Agents were paid transaction-based compensation for the activities which effectuated the investor’s […]
Without much fanfare by the SEC, this past Good Friday (March 25th), an administrative law judge ordered Boca Raton-based Ireeco LLC and Hong Kong-based Ireeco Ltd. to pay $3,179,633 in disgorgement, which is the amount in fees the companies collected with respect to arranging for the investments of 150 EB-5 investors. The action was based […]
As we inch closer to meaningful EB-5 reform, some regional centers, and related groups, in opposition have focused on one sentence of the draft bill: (VII) a certification that the regional center has policies and procedures in place that are reasonably designed to ensure that the regional center and any associated new commercial enterprises and […]
“God forbid we should ever be 20 years without such a rebellion”, said our founding father Thomas Jefferson. By all accounts, the EB-5 program is about 5 years overdue. The EB-5 program has come to a moment of truth in its quarter century history. The program has done much good, and some bad things have occurred in its […]
Targeted Employment Areas – TEAs – were supposed to be about bringing desperately needed investment capital into economically distressed areas. The thesis goes, create employers in those areas and the jobs are likely to go to those who live there. The current EB-5 program’s treatment of TEAs, in all but a minority of cases, does […]
On August 24, 2015, the Securities and Exchange Commission filed suit against Washington (State) based Path America SnoCo Regional Center, its CEO and several related entities for allegedly misappropriating funds and committing fraud with respect to $136 million in EB-5 investments. In this case, the SEC is attempting to shut down what seems to be a […]
Yesterday, December 7, 2015, the SEC announced settlements and the filing of one law suit against US immigration attorneys for allegedly acting as unregistered brokers in violations of the Federal securities laws. The timing could not have been more poignant. Both behind the scenes and occasionally in public articles and letters, there is a pitched […]
The SEC announced today that it has obtained settlements in the civil action related to the Chicago Convention Center case. A link to that announcement can be found here: “SEC Press Release on Chicago Case Settlement“ and the full press release can be found here The penalties are significant from the civil perspective, including million dollar plus fines […]