RALEIGH — The facility in Greensboro slated to host migrant children has seen a portion of its loan documentation assigned to two offshore companies in the British Virgin Islands.
Earlier this year, North State Journal reported the former American Hebrew Academy’s shift in loan assignments from Puxin Ltd. to two other companies.
The American Hebrew Academy campus is now referred to as the Greensboro ICF following an agreement to use the facilities by the U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement. The ICF is supposed to house, feed and educate 13- to 17-year-old migrant children with a bed capacity of 800.
The ICF is under a five-year contract totaling nearly $50 million with a start date of June 9, 2022, and end date of July 8, 2027, with an option to renew for additional years. The Biden administration’s Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is the signing authority on the contract.
According to Guilford County real estate records, the $26 million in loan documents for the property had been assigned from Puxin Ltd. in January 2023 to Metabroad International Group and Heyi Holdings. Records showed Metabroad’s representative Wei Yang was the first to notarize his documents in Virginia on Dec. 27, 2022. Yang is also a former AHA board member.
The following month, loan change paperwork was executed by “Ling Tie” on behalf of Heyi Holdings in Honolulu on Jan. 6, 2023. Six days later, Puxin’s CFO Peng Wang certified his part of the contract at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing.
A look into Guilford property records on Metabroad has revealed two new company names as grantors and grantees on the loan documents: Long Faith Limited and Long Wit Limited.
Very little is found online about either entity beyond their locations.
Long Wit Limited is registered in the British Virgin Islands. No officers or additional details were found. Long Faith Limited is also registered in the British Virgin Islands through “Portcullis TrustNet (BVI) Limited.”
The loan documents cover $15 million of the original $26 million loan and were witnessed by an official in the U.S. Embassy in the People’s Republic of China on Jan. 12, 2023.
The signatures on the Metabroad loan assignment document made by the Long Faith Limited and Long Wit Limited representatives are illegible but appear to be the same person with a handwritten title of “Director” next to each signature.
A look into Long Faith Limited revealed an individual named Chin-Huei Tsai was at one point listed as both director and shareholder and had an address in the People’s Republic of China.
Although the U.S. Administration for Children and Families Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) under HHS said in a Mar. 15, 2024, press release that the ICF was “operational,” no migrant children yet appear to be housed at the site.
As of May 22, the ORR’s website maintains the ICF is operational but no children are currently housed there.
Residents in the area claimed there was activity at the site in 2023 that included several buses with blacked-out windows entering and leaving the site.
According to the Unaccompanied Minors (UC) Fact Sheet as of May 9, 2024, there are 7,583 unaccompanied children in HHS’s care with the length of average care in their custody of 30 days.
UC data shows a total of 24,201 migrant children have been released to sponsors in North Carolina from fiscal year 2015 through March of fiscal year 2024.
