Cost of a green card?

[Texsox]

http://www.themonitor.com/articles/gonzale...family-violence.

 

More at link . . .

 

MCALLEN -- Rosendo Gonzalez sought a way for his family to leave Mexico when his wife was robbed at gunpoint.

 

A self-made businessman with a close-knit family, Gonzalez, 47, is one of a number of wealthy Mexican nationals looking to escape a violence-torn country who are taking advantage of a U.S. immigration program that promises green cards in return for investment.

 

Gonzalez intends to spend up to $5 million opening an Hidalgo County-based plastics factory that will complement the one he founded in Monterrey when he was 27. The investment will help Gonzalez, who has had permanent residency here since he was a child, bring his family to the United States.

 

“My heart is still over there with my family,” Gonzalez said Friday during a trip to look at a warehouse he is considering purchasing. “I have to do something to get my family out.”

 

Intrigued by the EB-5 program, dozens of Mexican families are traveling across the border to a nondescript McAllen office building.

 

Marketed throughout Mexico as USA Now, the office is one of six regional centers in Texas for the EB-5 investor visa, an immigration program launched two decades ago to stimulate economic activity by encouraging foreign nationals to invest at least $500,000 and create at least 10 jobs. U.S. businessmen with bold plans are using the program to raise capital for ventures ranging from construction of an NBA basketball arena in Brooklyn to expansions of Vermont ski resorts.

 

But in McAllen, rich Mexican nationals are lured more by the potential for a green card than for profit.

 

The USA Now Regional Center has secured $83 million in commitments from Mexican investors since it received a license to operate in late March, said Marco Ramirez, the company director who is ambitiously seeking $150 million for his fund within its first year of operation. Ramirez declined to discuss the specifics of his investment opportunities but said he offers funds for health care, property management and green energy.

 

An energetic entrepreneur who says he never would have discovered the EB-5 program if his floor covering business hadn’t closed in the recession, Ramirez’s schedule is packed each day pitching his program to Mexican families seeking legal residency in the U.S. away from the routine violence that continues to plague Mexico.

 

Targeted because of their wealth and community stature, most of his families have paid street taxes to operate their business. Others have been robbed at gunpoint in their homes or prepaid ransoms to prevent kidnappings.

 

Ramirez recounted the story of a businessman who drove four hours each weekend to stay in McAllen, risking running across highway checkpoints armed by cartel gunmen.

 

“He told me, ‘I would rather pray the rosary for four hours on my way to McAllen than to pray it all weekend staying home,’” Ramirez recalled in between investor meetings this week. “He was living in fear.”

 

 

 

MEXICAN VISAS

 

Drive past rows of homes in Hidalgo County’s wealthiest subdivisions and count the cars with Mexican license plates. Quantifying the exact impact of foreign investment in the Rio Grande Valley’s economy is a daunting task, economic development officials say. But Mexican shoppers have always generated activity in local retail, housing and entertainment markets.