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A lack of available financing and staggering local unemployment figures have the city of Portland turning its attention overseas in an attempt to solve both problems.

The Portland Development Commission is looking for a private company to help run the federal EB-5 visa program and create an EB-5 regional center. The federal program allows foreigners to obtain permanent residency in the U.S. for investing at least $500,000 in an American enterprise or project that creates at least 10 full-time jobs. But some say Portland is late to tap into the program and the city may find it is unable to compete in attracting investments.

“We have been getting a lot of requests for information about the program over the past few years so we decided to take a deep look at it,” said Peter Englander, development manager with the PDC. “We decided that if we took the charge on the program it could help support some of our (existing) business plans.”

The U.S. issues about 1 million green cards every year, 80 percent of which come from family or employee sponsors. About 440 of the cards issued every year are handed out through the EB-5 program.

The program’s regional centers serve as contact points for potential investors. Each center outlines potential local projects where foreign investors can invest. About 50 percent of the regional centers in the U.S. are focused on real estate development projects, while the rest vary from cattle ranches in South Dakota to hybrid manufacturers in California.

Even though the program is 20 years old, it didn’t start to gain popularity until two years ago at the beginning of the Great Recession. In 2008, only 25 EB-5 Regional Centers operated in the U.S. About 100 regional centers operate now, and 30 more are in the application process.

The recession played a large role in the increased popularity of the program, said Muzaffar Chishti, director of the New York office of the Migration Policy Institute. But one of the major changes has been the increased involvement of local governments as their budgets have tightened up, he said.

“Local governments have gotten their competitive juices flowing now,” he said. “It has made the program take off.”

PDC will be involved with setting up the center and bringing in a private entity to run the program. But when it comes to getting money for projects, such as its Burnside Bridgehead redevelopment, the PDC will have to wait in line like everyone else, Englander said.

“We can’t drive it,” he said. “We will just help get it started and set the bird free.”

A foreigner looking to make an EB-5 investment can choose between investing $1 million in a project, or at least $500,000 in specified areas where the average unemployment rate is 50 percent more than the national average. Business Oregon, the state’s business development department, will help identify parts of Portland that meet the requirement.

Once an investor comes forward with an investment, the money is put into a holding fund for a year while the investor’s background and the source of the money are checked for legitimacy. Once those steps are completed, the investor is issued a two-year temporary visa. After the two years, the regional center must prove the investment created at least 10 full-time jobs that lasted the entire two years. Once that information is verified, the investor is issued a permanent visa.

The stipulations around the program limit the types of projects that can be done, said Stephen Yale-Loehr, an immigration law professor at Cornell University. If a project takes five years to construct, the job quota can’t be determined in the required time frame, he said.

Yale-Loehr added that the increased popularity of the program has regional centers competing with each other overseas. The regional centers must also compete with countries like Canada and Australia who have similar programs.

“It has to be a project that is attractive to overseas investors, so marketing overseas is essential,” he said.

The task will likely be tough, but Noah Siegel, international relations director for Mayor Sam Adams, said Portland has always taken an aggressive approach to getting overseas business.

“We have always seen Portland as an international city and player,” he said. “This program will be beneficial in our goal to stay competitive nationally and internationally in attracting business.”

Other cities with regional centers have run into another problem: the entire process can be very slow-moving. The Bay Area Regional Center was created last June. After forming a partnership with the city of Oakland, leaders of the regional center were ready to get some projects started, but nothing has been done yet.

Brendan Heafey, vice president of business development for the center, said they are still in the queue stage.

“The process is long because you are not only underwriting projects like normal, but it has to go through a federal process that is extremely time-consuming.”

Chishti of the Migration Policy Institute said the program is full of bureaucratic delays, but that’s basically the nature of any federal program.

He also rebuts the opinion forwarded by some people that the program creates the impression that America is up for sale. But that isn’t the case because the EB-5 program is such a small part of the immigration stream, he said.

“I think the real story is going to be how well this program holds up after the recession,” said Chishti. “Although it has been slow to catch on in the past, it has been relatively successful. But this increased popularity could change that.”