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Alabama Center for Foreign Investment established
On
June 11, 2007, the Alabama Center for Foreign Investment, L.L.C. (ACFI)
was officially designated by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services
(USCIS) as Alabama's statewide Regional Center. As of November, 2007,
there were 18 Regional Centers in the United States, but only a handful
are active.
Federal
law and regulations provide for the establishment of a "Regional Center"
to encourage investment by foreign nationals in the United States.
A regional center can be a public or private entity. Once approved by federal
authorities, a regional center allows foreign investors to invest their
money through the regional center in a business in Alabama in order to
obtain immigration benefits for themselves and immediate family members
(normally spouse and minor children) in an amount not less than $500,000.
The visas are conditionally approved for two years. The basic conditions
— that the investor‘s capital is still at risk, and that at least ten (10)
jobs for U.S. workers were created as a result — may be satisfied by presenting
further documentation within 90 days prior to the second year of the foreign
investor's conditional immigrant visa status in order to obtain permanent
immigrant status in the United States.
Congress
has made available 3,000 of 10,000 available immigrant investor visas each
fiscal year are set aside for investors who take advantage of regional
centers, but the number of visas issued with regard to this entire immigrant
visa program rarely goes above 400. Alabama's regional center could generate
as much as $50 million or more annually in direct foreign investment by
small investors each year.
Ron
Drinkard, a former senior vice president of SouthTrust Bank and Wachovia
Bank, with more than 25 years of banking experience, serves as ACFI's Director,
while Boyd Campbell, a former chair of ILS, serves as General Counsel.
ACFI is actively involved in funding new investment projects and in identifying
others for later funding. ACFI identifies investment projects in
rural areas of Alabama that would qualify under federal regulations for
Regional Centers, and provides services to foreign investors in order to
help them with the federal requirements of this immigrant investor visa
program.
ACFI
will use the economic research services of the Center
for International Business and Economic Development in the Sorrell
School of Business at Troy University. Dr. Judson Edwards is Director
of the Center. ACFI will also use the economic research services
of the Center for Business and Economic
Research of the University of Alabama's Culverhouse School of Commerce
in order to provide research for individual investors and their immigration
lawyers. Dr.
Sam Addy serves as Director of the Center and will employ multiplier
analyses in connection with ACFI's development projects in order to show
the creation of 10 U.S. jobs per immigrant investor.
With
the announcement that KIA will build an automobile manufacturing plant
in West Point, Georgia, ACFI has seen considerable interest from Korean
investors who are anxious to assist first- and second-tier automotive parts
suppliers for KIA and Hyundai with funds to build new or expand existing
plants in central and east Alabama.
Evaluating
and preparing immigrant visa cases for employment-creation investors under
the EB-5 immigrant visa program represents some of the most difficult and
complex work an immigration lawyer can be involved in. The process
is anything but simple, made more difficult by USCIS adjudications and
Board of Immigration Appeals decisions. But recently, USCIS has indicated
that it will be more careful in handling these cases and encouraged ACFI
in its effort to establish a Regional Center.
More
information is available: CLICK
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Links
Reference for authentication of private transactional documents
National Association of Civil Law Notaries
International Union of the Latin Body of Notaries
Hague Conference on Private International Law -- The Hague Conference is an intergovernmental organization that assists in negotiating and drafting multilateral treaties (conventions) in the different fields of private international law (e.g. international judicial and administrative co-operation; conflict of laws for contracts, torts, maintenance obligations, status and protection of children, relations between spouses, wills and estates or trusts; jurisdiction and enforcement of foreign judgments). Visit frequently.
Bibliography
Bruno A. Ristau, International
Judicial Assistance: Civil and Commercial (International Law
Institute,
1995)
Louise Ellen Teitz, Transnational
Litigation (Lexis Law Publishers, 1996)
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