International Law and Immigration
Ca. Int'l Law Journal SPRING 2014, VOL. 22, NO. 1
Content
- Contents
- Editor's Comments
- Global Legal Research
- Going Overboard: the Criminalization of Seafarers in Violation of Their Human Rights, Regional and Domestic Law's Conflict with Unclos and Marpol, and the Need for Reform
- Greetings From the Chair of the International Law Section
- If You Conduct Business On a Transnational Scale, Don't Leave Home Without An Anti-Bribery Compliance Program
- Is It Time to Revise Your Company's Personal Data Privacy Policies? New Legislation Demonstrates China Is Serious About Personal Data Privacy
- Masthead
- Practitioner's Spotlight: Professor Niels W. Frenzen
- Recent Proposed Amendments to China's Patent Law: Will It Help to Improve the Enforceability of Patents in China?
- The California Cap-and-Trade Program's Linkage with Quebec: An Application of Conflict and Field Preemption
- The International Trial Lawyer - 2013 Year in Review
- The State Bar of California 87th Annual Meeting
- Immigrant Investor Visas and Diversification: An Application of Modern Portfolio Theory to Eb-5 Regional Centers
Immigrant Investor Visas and Diversification: An Application of Modern Portfolio Theory to EB-5 Regional Centers
By William Tolin Gay1
I. INTRODUCTION
The EB-5 or immigrant investor visa process is a method of obtaining green cards for wealthy foreign immigrants who invest money in the United States. The basic requirement for the EB-5 visa is to invest a certain sum of money in a business enterprise that creates at least ten permanent jobs over a two-year period. For the past several years, most immigrant investors have elected to invest in "regional centers," rather than creating their own businesses.2 A broad range of investment options are available to foreign immigrants, with varying levels of risk and return. This paper assumes that the principal reason for investing in a regional center is obtaining permanent residence.
Modern portfolio theory ("MPT") is a financial analysis methodology that assumes an investor can reduce overall risk, without necessarily reducing expected return, by means of intelligent diversification over a carefully selected portfolio of investments. MPT is at the core of most modern investment models.