The Horror of Hudson Yards Is How It Was Financed

https://www.citylab.com/equity/2019/04/hudson-yards-financing-eb5-investor-visa-program-immigration/586897/

by keeganjw • 7 years ago

169 82 7 years ago

I have worked in the United States for 10 years on a non-immigrant visa (I have no other way to work in the United states and 7 years of H1-B lottery have yielded nothing). I have paid more than six figures in taxes to the Feds, as well as contributed to an American business and being an active community member. I have no path or way to immigrate to the United States nor can I use by past decade of contributions in any way. Its a slap in the face when I read about people literally buying there way in and corrupt politicians and businessman manipulating the system without consequence.

keeganjw• 7 years ago

This how you know things are broken when someone who's been here a decade, paying their way and contributing, gets tossed out as soon as the wind blows a different direction. We're just shooting ourselves in the foot and missing out on a lot of good people.

tim3335• 7 years ago

The EB5 is still running if you can lend $500k for about six years.

gniv• 7 years ago

If you paid 10 years into social security, you are eligible for payments, wherever you are in the world.

mcguire2• 7 years ago

https://www.ssa.gov/international/agreement_descriptions.htm...

pm90• 7 years ago

Its a mistake to assume that the American system is fair or corruption free. To a certain extent, corruption and shadiness exist everywhere.

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.

enraged_camel• 7 years ago

>I know a whole bunch of folks who have married specifically for immigration reasons (some of them admit it, most don't).

To be perfectly clear, this is immigration fraud and it’s extremely illegal.

marcinzm4• 7 years ago

Its a slap in the face when I read about people literally buying there way in

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.

FreedomToCreate2• 7 years ago

So in your world view, bribery should be absolutely allowed than? You have a piece of land I want, but the law prevents me from stealing it from you and you won't sell. So I grease the hand of the local authorities and get them to take it via eminent domain, pay you some cash for compensation and just take it. I have more capital so its fair... We go to court, but since I have more money I'll just grease the hand of the judge.

unreal37• 7 years ago

The US doesn't have lower taxes like you think it does.

rainhacker• 7 years ago

Paying to get in is pretty much the definition of capitalism

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.

ashayh• 7 years ago

There are people who paid 10-15 years into SS and Fed taxes (sometimes more than 500K) yet have a long, long way to a Green card or citizenship.

bdamm4• 7 years ago

A friend of mine worked in the US for 17 years under various visas, but never managed to get her green card. She is facing retirement without the social security she was taxed to fund. She also won't get anything of usable value from the old-age pension program in her country of origin since she worked out of country for so many years. A real immigration trap.

booleandilemma3• 7 years ago

When someone goes to the US to work, aren’t they doing it to be paid wages they wouldn’t be able to make in their home country? That in and of itself is a nice benefit.

cletus• 7 years ago

What is her country of citizenship? There are different rules on eligibility for non-US citizens living abroad based on your other citizenship.

toomuchtodo• 7 years ago

The US and several other countries have reciprocal agreements with regards to payments into social security/retirement programs; did your friend neither save for retirement nor comes from a country with a reciprocal agreement?

refurb• 7 years ago

From a quick google search, you don’t necessarily need to have a green card. Not sure what the requirements are though.

totalthrowaway2• 7 years ago

The actual article title is "The Hidden Horror ... "

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.

kemiller• 7 years ago

I was in the neighborhood the weekend it opened and strolled through. Thing that struck me was that there was no seating almost anywhere. People were sitting on the floor and it felt like a weird refugee area.

bobthepanda3• 7 years ago

There's no seating because you're not meant to sit. A lot of public space these days is designed to be hostile for that use, so that undesirables like the homeless don't linger, but in the process it becomes hostile to everybody.

A lot of public-facing plazas are meant to be ornamental or monumental and nothing more, which is quite sad.

zachkatz• 7 years ago

I documented this. It's pretty crazy: https://www.instagram.com/p/BvXMeLSBZ5Q/

aeriklawson• 7 years ago

There's hardly any public seating in New York City other in major parks.

AznHisoka• 7 years ago

There's absolutely no entertainment there whatsoever. No movie theater, no play-centers for your kids to play, no public seating... and you need a ticket to walk around the structures. What drunk architect designed this place?

robrenaud• 7 years ago

A free timed ticket is way better than a long line.

The lack of public seating makes the place weird/uncomfortable to visit though.

andrewla2• 7 years ago

The summary is that through some insane gerrymandering, the Hudson Yards project is lumped in with a bunch of low-income areas in Harlem. This means that foreign investors only need to invest $500k to qualify for a visa program that would normally require a $1M investment.

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.

rb808• 7 years ago

The worst thing is people aren't paying $500k, they're investing $500k, so probably will get most of it back again. It really costs them nothing.

conanbatt5• 7 years ago

Would you feel better if they just paid 500k for a visa?

selimthegrim• 7 years ago

Probably - see http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2015/1/30/chinas-louis...

I think some of the money in question even ended up in DC condos.

tim3335• 7 years ago

Usually the 500k is an interest free loan to the developer so it doesn't cost much unless the developer scams you or goes bust which has happened a fair bit. On the other hand it doesn't really hurt the US much to let a few wealthy investors live there.

z2• 7 years ago

Let's say permanent residency for the family has a value, say $100,000. Can one make a scheme where multiple people pool their money together into a fund, which goes under the name of the lucky EB-5 investor? The EB-5 investor pays $100,000 out of pocket, and this goes to the other investors, who get 20% returns! Essentially, the EB-5 investor uses others as a financing option to buy a green card without needing $500k upfront.

bko• 7 years ago

Why's it bad? I think immigrants bring a lot into this country and we should have more immigrants. And if you're worried about immigrants stressing the welfare system, this method selects for those with greater means and less likely to rely on these programs

JJMcJ• 7 years ago

Also from article, there is a cap of 10,000 for EB-5 visas, and visas for family members count against the cap.

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.

tim3335• 7 years ago

Under EB5 you can get green cards for the wife and kids too so probably there were 2400 investments of $500k and 800 spouse/kids. There is no motivation to invest more than the minimum as there are quite a lot of strings attached. Something like 98% of the investors are Chinese. I looked at doing it myself - its actually not a bad deal if you want a green card and have the money.

andrewla2• 7 years ago

There is no motivation to invest more than the minimum as there are quite a lot of strings attached

Can you give more information here? Is there a duration for which you cannot earn income on the investment or something?

Thorrez• 7 years ago

The article says there were 3,200 foreign investors who qualified for the EB-5 through Hudson Yards

The article says

Related solicited investments from some 3,200 foreign visa-seekers

It's unclear to me what the definition of "solicited" is.

joe_the_user• 7 years ago

"Which terrible is the real terrible" can be problematic debate.

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.

CodeSheikh• 7 years ago

"EB-5 is supposed to be a way to jumpstart investment in remote rural areas, or distressed urban ones". And most of the investors apparently are from China. Is China really strategically investing in important infrastructure all over the globe?

code_duck• 7 years ago

Mmm, no, these people have no interest in that per se. They’re trying to buy individual access to the United States. The lack of interest in renovating dilapidated infrastructure is also underlined by the topic of the article, which is how these funds were actually invested in luxury real estate.

ng12• 7 years ago

I don't really understand the point of an urban TEA at all, at least in a thriving city in the midst of a housing bubble like New York. It sounds like a way to just directly funnel funds to gentrification projects.

thrwwy192783• 7 years ago

What a wonderful and equitable world globalism has created. The wealthy can just buy citizenship while the poor, the desperate and the refugees languish pretty much stateless. At this point a wealthy chinese, saudi or israeli citizen is more of an "american" than a poor kid born in the rust belt. At least the government and the elites value these wealthy foreigners more than any poor citizen here in the states.

bilbo0s• 7 years ago

poor kid born in the rust belt...

... or in Harlem apparently.

It is a little infuriating that they are, essentially, stealing from impoverished rural and urban areas.

mruts3• 7 years ago

That’s not what’s going on at all. You think that if Hudson Yards wasn’t built, Harlem would somehow get all that money? That’s not how it works, it’s not a zero-sum game.

albacur• 7 years ago

We already receive many rich and many destitute immigrants.

Maybe we should start immigrating in a middle class.

int_19h• 7 years ago

That's basically what H-1B does.

ralph84• 7 years ago

Just auction off N green cards every month. That would be much more transparent and fair than the current system.

mruts3• 7 years ago

I’m not sure what is so bad about this. Hudson Yards got money, investors got visas. Why is this a problem? It’s not like it’s taking investment from low income nrighborhoods: it’s not a zero sum game.

The Horror of Hudson Yards Is How It Was Financed

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