Bernstein Osberg-Braun, LLCOriginally published on www.lohud.com/
With the 2010 Westchester County budget calling for a combination of deep spending cuts and tax increases of almost 5 percent, there is no time like the present to take a page from former President Bill Clinton’s playbook and find a "third way," or triangulate on fiscal matters. One way to find this "third way" would be for the county to get itself designated by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service as an EB-5 Regional Center to foster direct investment to our area.
The concept of the EB-5 program profoundly turns the traditional xenophobic understanding of immigration and American job loss on its head. Under the EB-5 investor visa program, foreigners earn their permanent U.S. residency in exchange for helping to create U.S. jobs.
The EB-5 program requires a foreigner to invest $1 million in an urban area or $500,000 in rural or targeted employment areas (administered by a "regional center") and the creation of 10 permanent U.S. jobs. The investment must also remain "at risk" without repayment for a period of two years.
A regional center markets investment opportunities that attract immigrant investors, and directs their pooled or individual investments toward industrial and community projects that the regional center identifies.
Like the entire states of Vermont and Hawaii or Palm Beach County, Fla., the District of Columbia, and even New York City’s five boroughs, Westchester County can and should establish itself as an EB-5 Regional Center. Nationwide, there are only about 60 EB-5 Regional Centers, with the bulk of them clustered in California. There are only three in New York, and none impact Westchester County.
With the U.S. dollar’s sharp fall against many foreign currencies, there is no better time to tap into foreign sources of capital than now as the required investment is very affordable to many foreigners. Some examples of industries that are the recipients of EB-5 investor funds through regional centers include: light manufacturing, commercial property development, medical care, small business financing, agricultural enterprises, hotels, transit development, movie studios, museums and education facilities.
The list of industry type is limitless so long as American jobs are created.
For those who doubt the efficacy of such investor visa programs, consider this: As of 2008, Vermont’s Jay Peak Resort’s EB-5 program was expected to produce 2,000 jobs in the area, directly and indirectly, as a result of the expansion and construction of the resort’s hotels and other infrastructure. Around the country, the most successful regional centers have attracted more than 1,000 investors and $500 million to various projects administered through the regional center.
Just imagine what we could do right here with millions in EB-5 funds flowing into economic development projects? Think of a new downtown hotel in Mount Vernon, a new solar panel plant in Yonkers, a children’s museum in Rye, vineyards in Cortlandt, or a movie studio in Peekskill.
Moreover, the EB-5 program presents a unique opportunity to deepen the partnership between Westchester and the rest of the world. Ours is a global economy with interconnected and interdependent countries — an important message totally obscured by outgoing County Executive Andrew Spano’s unnecessary and expensive trips to China under the guise of economic development.
With a Westchester County EB-5 Regional Center in place, County Executive-elect Robert Astorino will have no trouble adhering to his campaign pledge to forgo expensive junkets to far-flung locales like the Far East as foreign investment will have every reason to come here first.
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