Sinophobia Rears its Ugly Head: Mamtek’s Forgotten EB-5 Investors

Remember October 13th's Immigration Insider, On Trust and EB-5 Marketing in China, where I mentioned Missouri's Mamtek EB-5 mess, where a number of EB-5 investors from China got taken for a ride, along with the State of Missouri?  Well, it's finally making the mainstream media in...

Jose E. Latour Dec 04, 2011

EB-5 Won’t Be the Only Chinese Money Creating U.S. Jobs

With Sinophobia now officially hitting the Republican primary debates (astonishingly triggered by no less than the former U.S. Ambassador to China Jon Huntsman -- excellent Christian Science Monitor article HERE ), the Chinese government's announcement that it wants to bankroll U.S. infrastruct...

Jose E. Latour Dec 02, 2011

USCIS/DHS Gets Serious About EB-5

To the ABSOLUTE DELIGHT of the EB-5 Community, on August 2, 2011 Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) Director Alejandro Mayorkas just unveiled a series of policy, operational, and outreach efforts “to fuel the nation's economy an...

Jose E. Latour Aug 05, 2011

Positive Changes on U.S. Visas for Iranian Nationals

Two of my best friends are Iranian-Americans...well, like me, they really are just plain old "Americans".  The "Iranian" prefix for these guys -  like the "Cuban" prefix for me -- is really more of a heritage stamp than any sort of embedded ethnic identity.
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Jose E. Latour May 26, 2011

ARTICLE LINK: TCKs…Third Culture Kids

Folks, my son Alex sent me an article I truly enjoyed and I wanted to share it with you.  It is definitely a pro-Obama piece, but that's not why I'm linking it.  I'm doing so because Alex, after reading it, commented that he was glad for the international experience he'...

Jose E. Latour May 18, 2011

Bin Laden’s Death and U.S. Immigration Policy

On September 11th, 2001, I was in Miami when a realtor friend phoned to tell me that an airplane had crashed into the World Trade Center.  I thought, as many did, that this initial news must be a mistake.  But it wasn't.  It was the beginning of what would be, ultimately, the sin...

Jose E. Latour May 03, 2011

Flashback: Port of Entry 2002 Thanksgiving Blog

Joey, friend of mine from many years past emailed yesterday.  He wanted to see if we could find a blog I'd written Thanksgiving week 2002 in my prior "before the word 'blog'" existed online daily posting, Port of Entry.  Well, I've been meaning to get the old ...

Jose E. Latour Nov 23, 2010

As Cuba Admits Failure, Venezuela Continues Its Economic Death Spiral

The pain in the eyes of the Venezuelans I see these days is more palpable and more real than the concern across their faces as early as last fall, when I began visiting clients in Caracas and discussing the EB-5 immigrant investor "just in case" Plan B option.  While there has been a ...

Jose E. Latour Sep 14, 2010

Venezuela’s Land Redistribution is Taking a Very Human Toll

As Chavez continues to eviscerate the Venezuelan economy through corruption and mismanagement, the expropriation of private lands has remained somewhat on the back burner in terms of topics of discussion between my clients and me.  While I have had more than one client whose farms have been sto...

Jose E. Latour Sep 10, 2010