In our final 2023 Chatting with Charlie: EB-5 Investor Outlook, WR Immigration Director of Visa Consulting Charlie Oppenheim and Joey Barnett provide unique insights on the January 2024 Visa Bulletin and what to expect from the EB-5 investor visa program. Watch below!
Authored by Joseph Barnett and Bernard Wolfsdorf, on behalf of AILA EB-5 Committee There has been a lot of recent interest from prospective immigrant investors in direct EB-5, including “pooled direct” investments. This is partially because the more popular EB-5 Regional Center program is waiting for reauthorization, and the (likely temporary) minimum investment requirement presently at $500,000 for job creation in a Targeted Employment Area (“TEA”).[1] As a result, the AILA EB-5 Committee would like to share their thoughts on specific issues related to the representation of direct EB-5 clients, as a high percentage of direct EB-5 cases appear to run into difficulties. Limited Scope of Representation. As lawyers, we can rely on outside professionals (such as accountants and business advisors) to provide advice in areas we are not competent to handle. Being a good immigration lawyer and advising clients regarding investor visas does not require that every lawyer handling these cases must be competent in the tax, business, and accounting work that is a critical part of the EB-5 framework. It is correct to state that EB-5 requires a team including the immigration lawyers, corporate lawyers, franchise lawyers, securities lawyer, business plan writer, accountant, banker, and the list goes […]
The U.S. Department of State (“DOS”) recently released the October 2022 Visa Bulletin, and it showed two new developments for EB-5 investors: (1) priority date retrogression of the 5th Unreserved Final Action Date (“FAD”) for China-mainland born from December 22, 2015 to March 22, 2015, and (2) creation of a 5th Unreserved FAD for India of November 8, 2019. The FAD has remained current for all other countries in the EB-5 Unreserved categories, and for all countries in the EB-5 “Set-Aside” categories. USCIS also announced that it will accept employment-based adjustment of status applications with priority dates that are earlier than the Dates for Filing (“DFF”) listed in the Department of State’s October Visa Bulletin. The 5th Unreserved DFF is January 1, 2016 for China-mainland born and is December 8, 2019 for India. For Indian nationals in the United States, this will not prevent many from applying for adjustment of status because nearly all Form I-526s were filed before the now-vacated EB-5 Immigrant Investor Program Modernization regulations that became effective date on November 21, 2019. For China-mainland EB-5 investors abroad, however, the large retrogression is surprising, especially given the amount of visa numbers available in FYs 2021 and 2022 that […]
