Buying Their Way In

That's the next step for Koki Fukuhara, who lives in Rockville with his family through an E2 visa and a $100,000 investment by his company, Nippon Zoki Pharmaceuticals. He set up Nippon Zoki's branch office in Chevy Chase for its U.S. joint venture with the National Institutes of Health and several universities. Fukuhara was already in the United States as a visiting scholar when his company decided to set up the office, which is being used to help bring a pain medicine from Japan to the U.S. market.

His company considered sending Fukuhara on a corporate-sponsored L visa, but that would require the pharmacologist to leave the United States for one year before coming back.

"It would have taken too long to apply for other visas, so my attorney advised this visa, which was surprisingly easy," Fukuhara said.

Kevin and Sheila Jamieson are now permanent residents of Tarpon Springs, Fla., but they first came as E2 visa investors in 1992. They've made a business of luring British investors to buy franchises of their cleaning service, Royal Maid Service. All but one of their 35 franchises in Florida are owned by British E2 visa holders.

"For British families that want to start over and try a new lifestyle, Florida makes sense because the lifestyle is easy here and there aren't language barriers like in closer European countries," Kevin Jamieson said.

The British Consulate in Miami estimates about 200,000 British citizens and dual nationals live in Florida. Enterprise Florida, a state-run trade and business organization, said British-owned firms employ 50,000 people in Florida, more than any other group of foreign companies in the state. Investors from Britain are the second-largest source of international investment in Florida, with $5 billion in holdings, they said. The British Bureau of Florida, a private business group, said its membership has increased about 40 percent in the last 10 years to more than 450 members.

Christine Pollar and Peter Willis moved to East Bradenton, near Tampa Bay, after tiring of their life in Torquay, England. The couple and their two children struggled with long working hours and mounting expenses. Willis only came home twice a month, living the rest of the week in a caravan several hours' drive away near his construction job in London.

"Then my daughter's friend announced her family was moving to Florida to start a business on an E2 visa. And we thought, 'Maybe we can do it,' '' said Pollar, 44, who now runs Isabelle's Eatery LLC on Longboat Key with nine employees.

They contacted the friend's immigration consultant, Peter Gold of Floridabuyahomeforu. Gold, who emigrated from England to Sarasota, Fla., in 1986, said he has helped 30 British E2 visa holders in the last five years find investment businesses. Within a few months, Pollar and Willis had purchased a home and the restaurant with $130,000 they brought with them from savings and taking out equity they had put into their home in England.

"The British first come here first as tourists and fall in love with Florida," said Gold, who initially came as an E2 visa investor. "They are disillusioned by life in the U.K. with the high property prices and drab weather."

In many cases, all it takes is the sale of a home in Britain to set up a business and buy bigger homes in Florida, where property prices can be significantly lower than in major cities like London, he said.

On a typical evening in Florida, the Willis family swims together in their backyard pool or the teenage children ride their bikes around the neighborhood. They bought sweatshirts in their first weeks in the United States, but rarely take them out of the closet.

"We want to stay here for good," Pollar said. The family is applying to extend their visa. "You would have to earn big money in the U.K. to live like this."