EB-5 Investors Face Hardships Amidst Hotel Opening

Details: Created on Friday, 09 September 2016 13:41; Written by Rebecca Reese

BURKE — Governor Shumlin made an appearance Thursday at Burke Mountain for the official ribbon cutting of the long awaited hotel. In Shumlin’s long list of thanks some people felt left out and cheated.

“I want to start by giving a shoutout to the employees, the contractors, the investors, the folks with a vision— all the people standing here that worked so hard,” Shumlin said.

Kai Chen spoke with News7 as a representative of several foreign investors that attended the event. Even though investors were thanked by Shumlin, they feel actions speak louder than words.

EB-5 is a congress made program from the 90s to create jobs and boost the U.S. economy. This done by capital investment from foreign investors. In 1992, the Immigrant Investor Program, also known as Regional Center Program, was put into place. Through this program, foreign investors, their spouses and unmarried children under the age of 21 can apply for a green card if they make a $500,000 to one million dollar investment in a U.S. commercial enterprise that will subsequently create 10 permanent full time jobs for U.S. workers.

These investors did invest but Chen said that only half of the deal was held— and that many of the investors he represented have seen any return on their investments

“They’re still very concerned about their investment,” Chen said.

Aside from their money, Chen said that they haven’t received their green cards either.

However, Shumlin is still pushing Vermont’s EB-5 program saying the state’s projects are a safer bet than any other in the country.

“Because of the extraordinarily painful process that we’ve been through, we’re probably a safer bet than most other EB-5 projects in America,” he said. “We got burned once— we won’t get burned twice.”