
The Horror of Hudson Yards Is How It Was Financed - keeganjw
https://www.citylab.com/equity/2019/04/hudson-yards-financing-eb5-investor-visa-program-immigration/586897/
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andrewla
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.

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rb808
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.

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bko
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

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rescripting
This isn't about immigration. It's bad because this program was designed to
inject investment in to economically depressed areas with high unemployment,
not downtown Manhattan.

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.

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ashayh
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.

~~~
bdamm
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.

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

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bdamm
Canada. My understanding was that green card holders get social security, but
non permanent residents don't, no matter how many years they've been working
in the states. But if in fact the visa status at time of working or time of
collection doesn't matter, then that would be welcome news indeed.

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.

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mcguire
It seems likely that she would be eligible for Canadian benefits.

[https://www.ssa.gov/international/agreement_descriptions.htm...](https://www.ssa.gov/international/agreement_descriptions.html)

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thrwwy192783
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.

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bilbo0s
> _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.

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mruts
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.

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mthoms
If I understand it correctly - there is a limited number of these Visas and
this mega-project used up most of them.

If true, then this scheme is indeed taking opportunity away from Harlem and
other areas it was intended to help.

~~~
mruts
That's a fair point. But have you considered that maybe Harlem would be hard
pressed to find investors, even if the investors got a Visa? It would only
take away investment from other areas if a) all the investment visa spots are
fully allocated and b) If the investors would have given the money to some
low-income community instead.

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.

~~~
mthoms
According to the article there's a 15 year waiting list for these Visas for
Chinese investors (it's not clear FTA why it would differ based on country of
origin).

It sounds like there's enough demand for this program to work (mostly) as
intended.

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totalthrowaway
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.

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kemiller
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.

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

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lnanek2
And the parks will give you a ticket if you sit on a bench after sunset. I've
gotten them for taking a rest on the way to walking between work and my
parking garage.

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djrobstep
What on earth? America truly is a dystopia

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FreedomToCreate
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.

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marcinzm
>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.

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FreedomToCreate
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.

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marcinzm
I quoted a specific part of what you said for a reason. The only dubious thing
they did was get the cap for investment lowered from $1m to $500k. The lower
cap does not change the fundamental issue you stated which was paying for
citizenship. Merely changes how much they had to pay.

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."

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ralph84
Just auction off N green cards every month. That would be much more
transparent and fair than the current system.

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joe_the_user
"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.

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ng12
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.

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CodeSheikh
"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?

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code_duck
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.

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mruts
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.

