Changes and Trends in EB-5 Investment Immigration
Is it the End of the EB-5 World as We Know it? How to Prepare for Potential Changes
The EB-5 program, officially known as the Employment-Based Fifth Preference Immigrant Investor Program, offers a compelling pathway for foreign investors to gain lawful permanent residency in the United States by investing in...more
The Department of State released the August 2024 Visa Bulletin. USCIS will continue to accept employment-based Adjustment of Status applications based on the Final Action Dates chart. Most Employment-Based Categories hold...more
In July of this year, we wrote about a fraud action involving the EB-5 Immigrant Investor Program (“EB-5 Program” or “Program”) (here). Under the EB-5 Program, investors are eligible for permanent residency status in the U.S....more
The Department of State released the September 2023 Visa Bulletin. Most Employment-Based Categories will hold steady with the exception of EB-2 Worldwide and EB-3 China: - USCIS will continue to accept employment-based...more
The Department of State released the July 2023 Visa Bulletin. Most Employment-Based Categories will hold steady with the exception of EB-3 Worldwide, EB-3 India, and Other Workers India: - USCIS will continue to accept...more
The EB-5 Immigrant Investor Program has gone through significant changes in 2022 due to the enactment of the EB-5 Reform and Integrity Act (RIA). Created in 1990 to stimulate the U.S. economy through job creation and...more
After Congress passed the EB-5 Reform and Integrity Act in March 2022, USCIS announced that the act repealed the legacy Regional Center Program. Consequently, more than 600 existing regional centers were effectively...more
On April 29, 2022, USCIS held its EB-5 Reform and Integrity Act of 2022 Listening Session and clarified that entities seeking to be designated as a regional center are required to file Form I-956, Application for Regional...more
EB-5 Regional Center Program reauthorized as part of Omnibus Spending Bill - After having lapsed over the summer of 2021, the EB-5 Regional Center Program (“RC Program”) was reauthorized as part of the Omnibus Spending...more
The Program allows federally authorized “Regional Centers” to pool foreign EB-5 visa applicants’ investments to exponentially fuel U.S. local and regional economies with projects that create and save thousands of American...more
Substantial changes are forthcoming for the EB-5 Immigrant Investor Program as the omnibus spending bill awaits President Biden’s signature. Aside from proposing $1.5 trillion for annual expenses and aid, the omnibus bill...more
In the evening hours of March 9, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a $1.5 trillion spending bill that would fund the U.S. government through the rest of the fiscal year and provide $13.6 billion to respond to Russia’s...more
Congress is set to pass Omnibus spending legislation that includes reauthorization of the EB-5 Immigrant Investor Regional Center Program, which has been suspended since June 2021....more
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on January 5, 2022, filed an unopposed motion to dismiss its August 2021 appeal to a district court ruling in Behring Regional Center LLC v. Chad Wolf, et al. The previous ruling...more
As of June 30, 2021, the EB-5 Immigrant Investor Regional Center Program has lapsed, and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has since rejected any submissions received on or after July 1, 2021, of the following...more
On June 22, 2021, Magistrate Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley of the Northern District of California ruled that Former Acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan exceeded his statutory authority in issuing the July 2019...more
Following a shift in U.S. presidential administrations and changes due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Jackson Walker partner Christian Triantaphyllis, who leads the Firm’s Investment Immigration practice, covers some potential...more
The EB-5 Immigrant Investor Program is one that attracts its fair share of attention, not all of it good, and too much of it from organizations named with that part of the alphabet — SEC and DOJ — that can strike fear in the...more
For the past 4 weeks, the EB-5 industry has been anxiously awaiting the status of the pending complaint filed in the United States District Court in the District of Columbia by a Florida regional center against USCIS and...more
Saul Ewing Arnstein and Lehr LLP has been extremely active in navigating the current status of the EB5 industry and determining what courses of action need to be taken given the existence of the new regulations ("New...more
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) published a final rule on July 24, 2019, that makes a number of significant changes to its EB-5 Immigrant Investor Program (“EB-5 Program”). These new rules are designed to...more
On November 21, 2019, the new EB-5 Investor Visa Program rules went into effect. That was also the day that the government could have shut down if a spending bill or another continuing resolution had not been approved. It...more
On November 21, 2019, the EB-5 "Immigrant Investor Program Modernization" became effective. This is the first significant EB-5 regulatory change instituted by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) since 1993....more
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has made significant changes to the Immigrant Investor Program (EB-5) through their establishment of new EB-5 modernization regulations. The EB-5 program permits individuals...more
As of November 21, 2019, the United States EB-5 immigrant visa, employment-based fifth preference category, or EB-5 Immigrant Investor Visa Program, will be revised for the first time since its 1990 enactment. The revisions,...more