EB-5 Investment Based Green Card Information

At the Law Offices of Vaughan de Kirby our EB-5 immigration lawyers pride themselves on getting you the EB-5 Green Card information you require to make informed decisions whether this is a suitable strategy by which to achieve your immigration goals. Having written books on this Green Card category our immigration lawyers are well versed in EB-5 law and current issues taking place in this arena. An EB-5 investment has many potential advantages however the process takes careful planning and analysis.
The EB-5 program creates the opportunity for foreign investors and their families to attain full immigration benefits, including access to the U.S. educational system for their children and legal permanent residence status to live and work anywhere in the U.S. Furthermore, this program eventually leads to opportunities for U.S. citizenship if that is the goal.
Additionally, the benefits of EB-5 investments to the U.S. economy are not abstract; they create real jobs for real people, in areas that are most in need of economic support. Further, it changes the lives of the investors and their families, who can enjoy the many benefits of living and working in the United States.
This immigrant visa raises many questions to the prudent persons considering their route. "Is the EB-5 program the best way for me to pursue a Green Card?" "Does it fit the needs of my family?" "Will it be the best avenue to allow my child to study and live in the United States?" "Do I even qualify for an EB-5 visa?"
Some of these questions are answered below but a much more thorough consideration of EB-5 Green Card issues will be found in our published book on this topic. To request your copy today merely click on the tab on the right side of this page titled "Get a Free Book," click on the publication you are interested in, and we will ship it directly to you.
To provide some basic EB-5 information which is considered in considerably more detail in our books we hit some main topics below:
The two investment based immigration paths available to applicants include:

1. Direct Investment: An investment of at minimum $1,000,000 into a new U.S. enterprise (unless the investment if being made into a rural area or an area stricken with at least 150% of the national unemployment rate, known as a target employment area), OR

2. Pilot Program Regional Investment Center: An investment of at minimum $500,000 into a USCIS approved Regional Investment Center (part of a Target Employment Area),
The Pilot Program was created only three years after the first EB-5 visa was established. It didn't take long for U.S. lawmakers to catch on to the fact that far fewer investors were applying for a visa that they had anticipated. Realizing that program's burdensome requirements and complicated application process were responsible for turning investors away, Congress initiated a temporary "Pilot Program" in 1993, experimenting with a completely different vision of the visa application process. The Pilot Program set aside 5,000 "regional center" visas a year-half of the 10,000 total EB-5 visas available annually.
The benefits of the Pilot Program which has been extended by congress each time the matter has come up, provides immense advantages over the initial Direct Investment option. These are detailed in our book, but we include some highlights here:

1. Under the first EB-5 program, the investor was required to create an entirely new commercial enterprise. The investor must also have been present at the "inception" of the business. This condition no longer exists under the Pilot Program.

2. Under the original program, the investor was obliged to prove that the new business directly created at least 10 jobs. Though it still requires that investment create 10 jobs, the Pilot Program changed the meaning of this requirement entirely. While the original program required that the new enterprise itself create and fill 10 new full-time employment positions-"directly" creating the jobs-the Pilot Program requires that the investment indirectly create 10 jobs. So how is this determined? The answer: industry job-multiplier statistics using economic modeling tools. If these statistics show-as they often do-that an investment of $500,000 would contribute to the regional economy in a way that would likely create or save at least 10 jobs, then this requirement is satisfied. The investment itself need not directly create any jobs at all. But again, satisfying this requirement is the responsibility of the regional center, not the investor.

3. Next, the "active management" requirement." Those applying for the original EB-5 visa were obliged to prove that they were taking an active role in the day-to-day management of the business. While the Pilot Program does technically require the investor to participate in management or policymaking, this participation is often largely symbolic, with the investor's vote as a limited partner satisfying the requirement.
Many other advantages exist although in certain instances the original Direct Investment option may still make sense for an individual. Overall however we have found that in reality the Regional Center investment route is often most appealing to individuals.
We hope that this overview was useful. Please feel free to sign up to receive one of our free publications and feel free to contact our well versed EB-5 immigration attorneys to answer any further questions.

by Vaughan de Kirby vdk@dekirby.net

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California Immigration Attorney