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Bipartisan legislation? Does such a thing exist anymore? Well, on January 28, 2015, Congressmen Jared Polis (D-CO) and Mark Amodei (R-NV) introduced The American Entrepreneurship & Investment Act of 2015 in an effort to permanently authorize the EB-5 Immigrant Investor visa program, which is now set to expire on September 30, 2015. Continue reading “Bipartisan Legislation Seeks to Make the EB-5 Program Permanent”
Last October, we advised our readers that U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Services (USCIS) had sent out several Notices of Intent to Terminate (NOITT) regional center designation to various regional centers around the nation. We also warned that this appeared to be an upcoming enforcement trend by USCIS to address complaints of fraud and abuse in the EB-5 Regional Center Program. Continue reading “USCIS Terminates 16 EB-5 Regional Centers”
According to the U.S. Department of States’ Report of the Visa Office 2014, below following is a ranking of the top EB-5 countries ranked according to the number of EB-5 visas issued in the 2014 fiscal year. Continue reading “Top Twelve EB-5 Countries by US Immigrant Visa Issuance”
When President Barack Obama first addressed the nation to unveil his Immigration Accountability Executive Actions, the media and the internet were in a frenzy to see who could get the story out first. Despite the fact that many of the specifics of the planned executive actions were unclear or not yet finalized, legal experts and analysts all across the country were discussing the potential consequences or effects on national security and the economy as a result of the estimated millions of undocumented immigrants in the United States who stood to benefit. Continue reading “The Devil is in the Details: What Employers and Businesses Need to Know About the President’s Executive Actions on Immigration”
On December 5, 2014, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) held a stakeholder conference call to update individuals interested in the Immigrant Investor Program (commonly referred to as the EB-5 Program). Continue reading “EB-5 Public Engagement Update”
In recent years, as raising capital has become more difficult for developers and the waiting time for green cards has increased for immigrants from certain countries, the popularity of the EB-5 Regional Center Program (also known as the Investor Pilot Program) has skyrocketed. On the one hand, that is great news for developers and investors alike. On the other hand, the parties have to be careful to make sure the prospective investment in the developer’s project is structured in a way that complies with the Pilot Program’s requirements and makes it enticing to foreign investors. Continue reading “EB-5: A Creative Financing Option for U.S. Developers and Businesses”
No one can really predict the future. But as analysts will tell you, we can learn a lot from the past and watching current trends. This is especially true when it comes to immigration, which is in a state of constant flux. Continue reading “More EB-5 Predictions”
During the 2013 Fiscal Year, USCIS notified more than 50 EB-5 regional centers on its intent to terminate their designation for one of the two following reasons: (i) not filing the required Form I-924A, or (ii) failing to promote economic growth as required under the EB-5 regulations. Continue reading “Failure to file Form I-924A Can Lead to a Notice of Intent to Terminate”
On October 17, 2014, USCIS announced its intent to implement a Haitian Family Reunification Parole Program in early 2015. Last Wednesday, during a stakeholders teleconference, USCIS officials provided a broad overview regarding how the program would work. Continue reading “Haitian Family Reunification Parole Program Announced for 2015”
In September 2014, we predicted the EB-5 visa category would retrogress sometime in the 2015 fiscal year. After all, Form I-526 filings have increased by over 500% over the last five years. And the EB-5 category for Chinese nationals became unavailable at the end of the 2014 fiscal year. Our hunch was confirmed by the Department of State (DOS) recently, when Charles Oppenheim, Chief of the Visa Control and Reporting Division at the DOS, predicted that the EB-5 immigrant visa category would retrogress as early as May 2015, but definitely sometime during the 2014-2015 fiscal year. Continue reading “Retrogression Alert Issued for EB-5 Category”