Presently there is a large interest by EB-5 investors in filing an I-526 Petition following the Behring federal court decision, which invalidated the 2019 EB-5 regulations. With the minimum investment amount decreased from $900,000 to $500,000 for targeted employment area investments, a window has opened for investors to potentially file an I-526 Petition at the
On July 29, Representative Zoe Lofgren, Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on Immigration and Border Security, and Representative Luis Gutiérrez introduced H.R.3370, the Entrepreneurial Business Creating Jobs Act of 2015 to permanently reauthorize and reform the EB-5 Regional Center Program. Representative Lofgren’s sectional summary can be found here.
The legislation provides visas for foreign entrepreneurs who obtain venture capital or seed financing and wish to start businesses in the United States. And it provides visas for foreign entrepreneurs who are in the United States in non-immigrant status operating an existing business and can show that the business is growing.
The legislation also permanently reauthorizes the Conrad State 30 J-1 Visa Waiver Program, and authorizes for five years the E-Verify Program and the Special Immigrant Nonminister Religious Worker Program. Below are the major components of the legislation:
Provisions for “Venture Capital-Backed Start-Up Entrepreneurs”
A June U.S. Policy Metrics/Hamilton Place Strategies report Harnessing Private Capital For Job Creation: An Analysis Of The EB-5 Visa Program demonstrates the impact of the EB-5 visa program as a net job creator and budget-neutral catalyst for bringing private investment into the U.S. The report was commissioned by the EB-5 Investment Coalition (EB-5IC), a broad-based, bipartisan organization focused on reauthorizing and strengthening the EB-5 Regional Center Program. This report is authored by Steve McMillin, a partner at U.S. Policy Metrics and former deputy director of the White House Office of Management and Budget under President George W. Bush; Michael Solon, also a partner at U.S. Policy Metrics and former budget advisor to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY); and Matt McDonald, a partner at Hamilton Place Strategies and a former advisor to President George W. Bush.
Continue Reading New Report Validates the EB-5 Program as a Most Efficient Job Creation Program
In a welcome bit of news for the EB-5 industry, USCIS released updated processing times dated as of April 30, 2014 which show USCIS is processing I-924 applications in approximately 4.4 months. Earlier this year, the processing of I-924 applications was moved to the new Immigrant Investor Program Office (IIPO) in Washington D.C. The new EB-5 Program Director Nicholas Colucci oversaw this transition and, during the February 2014 USCIS EB-5 Public Engagement, expressed optimism that the move to the IIPO and ramp-up of new staff at the IIPO would lead to shorter processing times. This new announcement by USCIS appears to be the fruits of that labor by Mr. Colucci and the IIPO and is significantly less than the most recent processing time reports, which pegged the I-924 application processing time at approximately 12 months.
Continue Reading I-924 Processing Times Reduced to 4 Months
Congress’s stated purpose in allowing EB-5 investment in USCIS-approved regional centers was to promote “economic growth,…improved regional productivity, job creation, and increased domestic capital investment.”[1] Regional centers have admirably risen to this objective, providing rich sources of capital investment for a variety of projects across the nation. Particularly in the current economic climate where capital