What advantage does the investor based green card route provide me?

The two main advantages of this investment based immigration route are the speed by which an applicant receives legal permanent residence in the U.S., and the lack of several application requirements that often make the green card process prohibitive for many applicants. To get a better idea of these advantages let us quickly consider the general path that persons not availing themselves of the investor based green card process must endure:

An applicant would first have to apply for a non-immigrant visa such as an H-1B or L-1 visa. To do this an applicant would need to have an employer, which by itself can already be prohibitive for many people. One must also convince USCIS of your educational and experiential qualifications and that you are going to be engaging in a qualifying occupation. If one manages to qualify for such a non-immigrant visa it would then only be granted for a period of 1 or 3 years depending on certain factors. After that time is used up on the non-immigrant visa one would have to apply for an extension which is by no means assured. If an applicant then wishes to apply for a green card and adjust status from the H-1B or an L-1 visa to an immigrant visa (green card), then another arduous process begins. In some cases this requires finding a sponsoring employer for the green card case, having the company conduct recruitment advertising, and justifying why the company needs the applicant and cannot find suitable employees in the U.S. to complete the applicant's job. As one can imagine, this process is often difficult, especially in the current economic situation in the U.S. Often times this whole process can take 3-5 years or more.