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Jay Peak Ponzi Scheme: Immigrant Investors File Class Action Against Vermont

29 points by georgecmu 5y ago

nkurz 5y ago
Some background stories over the years: https://vtdigger.org/tag/jay-peak-resort/ https://vtdigger.org/tag/jay-peak-resort/
lvs 5y ago
This document is incomprehensible. I have no idea what happened here. It seems to be written for a reader who already knows every detail of a saga.
- gruez 5y ago
  Are we talking about the article, or the court filing? I read the first two paragraphs of the article and got a pretty good idea of what happened.
listenallyall 5y ago
"Immigrant Investors" is technically correct but a reader is likely to imagine poor Central American refugees spending their last few dollars. In reality, these are wealthy foreigners who attempted to participate in the EB-5 "buy American citizenship for $500,000" program. Not saying they deserved to be ripped off, but the entire point of the program is to skirt the normal waiting process and buy their way to the front of the line for citizenship. It's hard to have much sympathy. Edit: EB-5 grants a green card (permanent residency), not citizenship directly. Although getting the green card is required for eventually gaining citizenship.
- georgecmu 5y ago
  Can you provide some information on "the normal waiting process" you are referring to? Your wording implies that there's some sort of a queue that wannabe immigrants must join, unless they're wealthy, in which case they can simply "buy American citizenship for $500,000."
  - listenallyall 5y ago
    > there's some sort of a queue that wannabe immigrants must join Yes exactly. 10+ years long for many categories and longer from some specific countries. Or, go the EB-5 route if you can afford it, with "No Wait" (except for Chinese applicants). https://www.boundless.com/blog/visa-bulletin/ https://www.boundless.com/blog/visa-bulletin/
    - georgecmu 5y ago
      So, to your best knowledge, these are the queues for the wannabe immigrants? Like anyone who wants to immigrate can go ahead and join one of these; is that how it works?
      - screye 5y ago
        Queues are country specific, and wait times are estimated from processing speeds of applications per country. India is the worst hit with 10-100 year wait times. (yeah, the estimates vary drastically between govts. It was a crawl for the last 10 years, but has picked up in 2021) China and Mexico also suffer a bit, but it is not as bad. Every other country has zero waititimes, so it takes about 3 years to get the rest of the red rape out of the way.
      - listenallyall 5y ago
        Not just anyone. The F categories are only for applicants with a family connection to an existing U.S. citizen or green card holder, as detailed in each category's title. I'd suggest the best source to get your questions answered is not a random comment thread, but the US State Dept's Visa Bulletin, which the Boundless article links to.
        olliej 5y ago
        If you can’t trust people commenting about immigration law on HN, who can you trust? :) Joking aside, there are many many people on HN who have gone through the naturalization process so their experience is a reasonable source for approximate waiting times. Obviously INS will have the official estimates but in my experience those were off by quite a bit.
thoughtstheseus 5y ago
The Financial plumbing of a typical EB-5: An Immigrant invests in a “EB-5 Regional economic development center” or “Red”. The Red pools many EB-5 investors together and then makes real estate, or similar, development loans. This works well for the EB-5 immigrant as the loans have a maturity date so in theory you get your money back after a set period of time. EB-5 investments must be equity (no fixed period). From what I’ve heard, most immigrants break-even or lose a bit on their investment after brokers fees and such.
- gruez 5y ago
  >From what I’ve heard, most immigrants break-even or lose a bit on their investment after brokers fees and such. if the minimum investment is $500k as other commenters have noted, then that seems like a pretty good deal? even with a 10% loss it's only $50k for a visa.
nmitchko 5y ago
This sheds a light on some bad practices around all ski areas: * J1 / E5 visa abuse to skirt labor and wage laws and get cheap investments * Overselling / abusive terms of carriage for lifts * Overpricing basic food and services, assigning abusive police-style regulators on slopes (looking at you vail) So at the end of the day, we have to take a look and think: should lifting skiers up a mountain on a chairlift really be worth billions of dollars in market cap? Should mountains, who are almost 90% public land (in the USA), even be businesses?

29 points by georgecmu 5y ago

Some background stories over the years: https://vtdigger.org/tag/jay-peak-resort/ https://vtdigger.org/tag/jay-peak-resort/

lvs 5y ago

This document is incomprehensible. I have no idea what happened here. It seems to be written for a reader who already knows every detail of a saga.

gruez 5y ago
Are we talking about the article, or the court filing? I read the first two paragraphs of the article and got a pretty good idea of what happened.

listenallyall 5y ago

"Immigrant Investors" is technically correct but a reader is likely to imagine poor Central American refugees spending their last few dollars. In reality, these are wealthy foreigners who attempted to participate in the EB-5 "buy American citizenship for $500,000" program. Not saying they deserved to be ripped off, but the entire point of the program is to skirt the normal waiting process and buy their way to the front of the line for citizenship. It's hard to have much sympathy. Edit: EB-5 grants a green card (permanent residency), not citizenship directly. Although getting the green card is required for eventually gaining citizenship.

georgecmu 5y ago
Can you provide some information on "the normal waiting process" you are referring to? Your wording implies that there's some sort of a queue that wannabe immigrants must join, unless they're wealthy, in which case they can simply "buy American citizenship for $500,000."
- listenallyall 5y ago
  > there's some sort of a queue that wannabe immigrants must join Yes exactly. 10+ years long for many categories and longer from some specific countries. Or, go the EB-5 route if you can afford it, with "No Wait" (except for Chinese applicants). https://www.boundless.com/blog/visa-bulletin/ https://www.boundless.com/blog/visa-bulletin/
  - georgecmu 5y ago
    So, to your best knowledge, these are the queues for the wannabe immigrants? Like anyone who wants to immigrate can go ahead and join one of these; is that how it works?
    - screye 5y ago
      Queues are country specific, and wait times are estimated from processing speeds of applications per country. India is the worst hit with 10-100 year wait times. (yeah, the estimates vary drastically between govts. It was a crawl for the last 10 years, but has picked up in 2021) China and Mexico also suffer a bit, but it is not as bad. Every other country has zero waititimes, so it takes about 3 years to get the rest of the red rape out of the way.
    - listenallyall 5y ago
      Not just anyone. The F categories are only for applicants with a family connection to an existing U.S. citizen or green card holder, as detailed in each category's title. I'd suggest the best source to get your questions answered is not a random comment thread, but the US State Dept's Visa Bulletin, which the Boundless article links to.
      - olliej 5y ago
        If you can’t trust people commenting about immigration law on HN, who can you trust? :) Joking aside, there are many many people on HN who have gone through the naturalization process so their experience is a reasonable source for approximate waiting times. Obviously INS will have the official estimates but in my experience those were off by quite a bit.

thoughtstheseus 5y ago

The Financial plumbing of a typical EB-5: An Immigrant invests in a “EB-5 Regional economic development center” or “Red”. The Red pools many EB-5 investors together and then makes real estate, or similar, development loans. This works well for the EB-5 immigrant as the loans have a maturity date so in theory you get your money back after a set period of time. EB-5 investments must be equity (no fixed period). From what I’ve heard, most immigrants break-even or lose a bit on their investment after brokers fees and such.

gruez 5y ago
>From what I’ve heard, most immigrants break-even or lose a bit on their investment after brokers fees and such. if the minimum investment is $500k as other commenters have noted, then that seems like a pretty good deal? even with a 10% loss it's only $50k for a visa.

nmitchko 5y ago

This sheds a light on some bad practices around all ski areas: * J1 / E5 visa abuse to skirt labor and wage laws and get cheap investments * Overselling / abusive terms of carriage for lifts * Overpricing basic food and services, assigning abusive police-style regulators on slopes (looking at you vail) So at the end of the day, we have to take a look and think: should lifting skiers up a mountain on a chairlift really be worth billions of dollars in market cap? Should mountains, who are almost 90% public land (in the USA), even be businesses?