EB-5 Visas, charter schools. Law passed in 2000 near end of Bill Clinton's presidency.

[madfloridian]

Last edited Sun Oct 11, 2015, 04:42 PM - Edit history (1)

The EB-5 visa has a lot to do with the huge amounts of money being given to charter schools. Public education in America is suffering because of it.

Silence no more.

Thanks to a little discussed law passed in 2000 at the end of Bill Clinton’s presidency, Banks and Equity firms that invest in charter schools and other projects in underserved areas can take advantage of a very generous tax credit, as much as 39% to offset their expenditure in such projects. In essence, that credit amounts to doubling the amount of money they have invested in just 7 years.. Moreover, they are allowed to combine that tax credit with job creation credits and other types of credit, and collect interest payments on the money they are lending out-all which adds up to far more than double in returns.

And it’s not just U.S. investors who see the upside of these investments. Rich donors throughout the world are now sending money to fund our charter schools. Why? Because if they invest at least $500,000 to charters under a federal program called EB-5, they’re allowed to purchase immigration visas for themselves and family members, yet another mechanism in place to ensure that the money keeps rolling in.

More implications of this visa from Fortune Magazine.

The dark, disturbing world of the visa-for-sale program

Increasingly, the skilled and the poor are out of luck. But the rich are another matter. The program (EB-5 is short-hand for the government’s fifth employment-based visa “preference”) allows well-heeled foreigners to leap to the front of the line by simply plunking down $500,000.

.....Today EB-5 commands bipartisan support—and it’s booming. Believers tout the program as a “win-win-win” that helps immigrants and U.S. workers, and provides valuable investment in American communities. A trio of billionaires—Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, and Sheldon Adelson—recently endorsed the program in an op-ed column in the New York Times.

.....The EB-5 program isn’t overseen by a financial regulator but by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), part of the Department of Homeland Security. Accustomed to processing visas and conducting immigrant background checks, USCIS is ill-equipped to review business plans, job- creation studies, and securities offerings. The SEC retains the power to police fraud. What that means is the agency has no mechanism to sniff out a problem until it has exploded, at which point the agency can only clean up the mess.

Excellent article but very long. A few excerpts do not do it justice.

The Florida charter school industry has been especially hit hard by these visas.

Chinese expected to invest about 90 million dollars in Florida charter schools in 2013

Chinese investors are taking advantage of the EB-5 investment visa program, the so-called "green card via red carpet," by putting millions into Florida's charter schools and an aquaculture farm in Central Florida.

Under the EB-5 program, through investments of at least $1 million — or $500,000 for "targeted employment areas" — foreign nationals are able to obtain legal residency in the US so long as the money they invest will help secure or create at least 10 full-time jobs.

A group of Chinese investors have put $30 million into the state's charter school program to date and are looking to invest three times that amount in the next year, Ilona Vega Jaramillo, director of international business development for Enterprise Florida, the state's economic development arm, said in a US-China roundtable discussion last week.

She would not name any of the investors, citing confidentiality.

I just did a search for some more up to date articles, but not much at all about charter schools since 2012.

I did find this page showing some of the EB-5 projects in SE Florida.

Southeast Florida EB-5 Regional Center

OUR REGIONAL CENTER

Southeast Florida EB-5 Regional Center, LLC. is an approved EB-5 Regional Center by the "Department of Homeland Security" and the "United States Citizenship and Immigration Services" (USCIS) and has the authority to offer investment opportunities to qualified foreign investors who wish to invest in our Regional Center projects in Palm Beach, Broward and Miami/Dade counties , and other counties with USCIS qualified projects in the State of Florida.

Our projects are I-526 "Shovel Ready Exemplar" approved that provides for faster processing our investors.

This program is known as the "EB-5 Immigrant Investor Program" of the United States Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS).

MISSION

Southeast Florida EB-5 Regional Center will promote job creation, economic growth and increase domestic investment by aligning capital within specific investment projects in targeted geographic areas in Palm Beach, Broward and Miami/Dade Counties in the State of Florida. We may review and approve EB-5 projects outside of this area within the state provided they meet the guidelines of the USCIS for EB-5 Visa Program.

A couple of pictures at the link, with no further explanation as to whether they are present or future projects.



EXTRAORDINARY LEADERS ACADEMY PRIVATE CHARTER SCHOOL



CONTINUING CARE RETIREMENT COMMUNITY (CCRC)

And from the first link in the OP:

I much agree with this statement.

Any questions about why Charters are so popular with the wealthy? Any questions why the wealthy insist on supporting Charters even though the research is quite clear. Ever wonder why it is next to impossible to get any statistical information out of charters?

Money cures conscience!

So how in the world in that big money investment of 90 million plus in Florida charter schools coming along? Well....

Florida’s big charter school problem (which Jeb Bush manages not to talk about)

Fast forward to 2015. Has anything changed? Not much, according to a new exposé on Florida charter schools, this one done by the Sun-Sentinel, with the headline: “Florida’s Charter Schools UNSUPERVISED — Taxpayers, students lose when school operators exploit weak laws.”

It says that in the past five years, 56 charter schools in South Florida have closed because of mismanagement and/or other issues, and that “a handful” of them “owe a total of at least $1 million in public education money to local school districts” but because districts have a hard time documenting spending, the amount could be much higher. The story says:

Unchecked charter-school operators are exploiting South Florida’s public school system, collecting taxpayer dollars for schools that quickly shut down.

A recent spate of charter-school closings illustrates weaknesses in state law: virtually anyone can open or run a charter school and spend public education money with near impunity, a Sun Sentinel investigation found.

Florida requires local school districts to oversee charter schools but gives them limited power to intervene when cash is mismanaged or students are deprived of basic supplies — even classrooms.

Once schools close, the newspaper found, districts struggle to retrieve public money not spent on students.

Not going so well.

Unfortunately the names of the EB-5 half million dollar donors must remain secret. It's at times like the long distance landlord, I imagine.

[madfloridian]

1. I did find some links to an Extraordinary Leaders Academy

https://www.facebook.com/ELAcademyNC

http://kquints.wix.com/ela1#!board-of-directors/c1upr

http://kquints.wix.com/ela1#!welcome-letter/c21yj

[madfloridian]

2. tl;dr and boring as hell.

Shows why big money does matter, shows we really can't overcome it. What's been happening to public schools is hard to explain, takes too much time to understand, and now public schools are fast becoming a thing of the past.

[Wilms]

3. That's Bill's version of Hillary's H-1B.

It's these kinds of things that make me a Sanders supporter.

[madfloridian]

4. Yep.

[AzDar]

5. K & R

[daleanime]

6. Bookmarked

[madfloridian]

7. Thanks.

[daleanime]

8. That's the other way around....

Thank you for the information.