The Horror of Hudson Yards Is How It Was Financed
citylab.com
citylab.com
What's unclear from the article is how extensively this exception was used (that is, how many <$1M investments were accepted).
The article says there were 3,200 foreign investors who qualified for the EB-5 through Hudson Yards, for a total of $1.2B invested. That's an average of $375k per investor, which makes no sense -- $500k is the floor. It might be that the 3,200 number was derived by dividing the $1.6B (that includes the still-accepting-investors phase 3) by the $500k requirement for the TEA (Targeted Employment Area). Without real stats it's hard to see how bad this is -- "buying your way in" is maybe a tough pill to swallow for people who have tried to immigrate, but the $1M EB-5 path is open regardless of zoning shenanigans.
But the government could also cut some other tax, putting a small amount of money into everyone’s pocket relatively equally.
To the visa buyer its irrelevant, it has the same cost wherever it goes.
I think some of the money in question even ended up in DC condos.
One unfortunate thing for the investor is that as well as losing money they can lose the green card and get kicked out.
This also means the investments are not as "risky" as likely was intended. They'll almost certainly make it back, with dividends, because its NYC not rural Arkansas.
So it is possible that Hudson Yards sucked up an entire year of visas and investment intended to support poorer areas, like Harlem itself, that is Harlem for real, not the crazy map which was shown in the article.
Can you give more information here? Is there a duration for which you cannot earn income on the investment or something?
The article says
>Related solicited investments from some 3,200 foreign visa-seekers
It's unclear to me what the definition of "solicited" is.
Did the U.S. change the rules on her, or could she have seen this problem coming?
You come here, you work, and you pay social security. That’s how it works.
You have the odd assumption everyone is entitled to the social security they pay.
If people don’t like the rules they can find another country to work in.
Also the Canadian version of SS is a sliding scale based on how many years you paid into it, I implicitly assumed it's the same for the US but only now realized that might not be the case.
https://www.ssa.gov/international/agreement_descriptions.htm...
... or in Harlem apparently.
It is a little infuriating that they are, essentially, stealing from impoverished rural and urban areas.
If true, then this scheme is indeed taking opportunity away from Harlem and other areas it was intended to help.
I'm certainly not an expert on this, but it sounds plausible to me that at least one of the aforementioned conditions is not true.
It sounds like there's enough demand for this program to work (mostly) as intended.
Maybe we should start immigrating in a middle class.
Having been there, financing is but one of its many horrors. NYC is great for many reasons. Having high end airport malls is not one of them.
A lot of public-facing plazas are meant to be ornamental or monumental and nothing more, which is quite sad.
https://www.pps.org/article/wwhyte
He literally filmed what people actually did in public spaces, and came up with great guidelines to make them enjoyable.
Architects study this is school. As you say, whenever it isn't implemented, it is because they specifically chose not to, not because they don't know better.
The plazas at Herald Square and Times Square also have limited seating, but there the main limit is space.
The lack of public seating makes the place weird/uncomfortable to visit though.
America is a great country but you kinda have to assume the worst and live life accordingly. Which means hustling all the time, looking at alternative ways etc. I know a whole bunch of folks who have married specifically for immigration reasons (some of them admit it, most don't).
I'm not saying that you do any of those things and I empathize with you. I guess the only place where I fault you is in assuming the American system is fair and corruption free, which it totally is not.
To be perfectly clear, this is immigration fraud and it’s extremely illegal.
Why? The US is a capitalistic society and more so than other countries such as those in Europe. Presumably you liked the US because it is such a capitalistic society with high pay, slightly lower taxes, etc. Paying to get in is pretty much the definition of capitalism.
So on that point, buying your way in is not bribery if the legal system allows it. It's merely paying for a service from the government. For example, I pay the government to register my car, to get permits for work I'm doing or get a concealed gun permit. In this case they're paying for citizenship. This is also merely one way to pay for citizenship, little different than the usual "pay $100+k for a US college degree so my child gets OTP and can apply for a H1B."
It's not. Paying to get in like this is depriving not only OP but more importantly, the intended beneficiaries of such schemes.
As the article points out, the total number of visas "may have easily claimed an entire year’s worth of visas issued under EB-5". Which leads to:
"The cap on visas also serves as a cap on available financing. If a project like Hudson Yards accounts for a whole year’s worth of EB-5 visas, it also consumes a year’s worth of financing meant for projects in low-opportunity places."
What about the 'payment' that generations of residents of Harlem made? If this was done fairly, neither the residents of low-opportunity places nor OP would feel slapped.
Still, I'd say the original claim that this visa program could help low income neighborhoods deserves entry on the list of terribles along with it's overt hijacking.