WR Immigration Director of Visa Consulting Charlie Oppenheim, Partner Charina Garcia, and Senior Associate Laura Bloniarz update HR professionals with the latest information from the November Visa Bulletin. They dive into an analysis of employment-based and family-based immigrant visa categories, December predictions and much more. Watch below!
The EB-5 visa program coveted by many wealthy overseas investors is being revived after changes aimed at curbing abuses. The EB-5 visa program has attracted $37 billion in foreign investments since 2008 and the queue of wealthy applicants from China to India is growing. Earlier this year, the Biden administration signed a law that steps up audits and site visits to deter fraud, while also creating a path for some to skip the backlog of cases if they’re willing to invest in rural areas or places with high unemployment. Roughly 100,000 EB-5 visa applicants with some $15 billion in committed investments had been in limbo since the program lapsed, trade group Invest in the USA estimates. The fresh rules are unleashing pent-up demand. Bernie Wolfsdorf, WR Immigration’s Managing Partner and a former president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, said his firm has been working overtime and hiring new staff to adjust to demand from countries like India, which has eclipsed the number of petitions filed from China. Drawing such investors could help prevent a brain drain, since many wealthy emigrants’ children study at top US schools, he said. Read the entire Bloomberg article here.
WR Immigration, a distinguished U.S. law firm that specializes with EB-5 visas, has secured its first approval on a Form I-526E, Immigrant Petition by Regional Center Investor since the U.S. Congress passed the EB-5 Reform and Integrity Act of 2022 (“RIA”). This is particularly exciting news because it only took around 8 months for USCIS to approve the Form I-526E, without any Request for Evidence related to the immigrant investor’s lawful source of investment capital. It appears that U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (“USCIS”) is following Congress’ mandate in the RIA to prioritize the processing of Form I-526Es related to qualifying investments in rural areas. USCIS must first approve a Regional Center’s Form I-956F, Application for Approval of an Investment in a Commercial Enterprise prior to approving any Form I-526E filed by an immigrant investor in that EB-5 project. WR Immigration filed a writ of mandamus lawsuit against USCIS on the pending Form I-956F earlier this summer and was able to get USCIS to take action and approve the Form I-956F. Even more exciting is that the immigrant investor, a Chinese national, will face no visa backlog and can immediately apply to the U.S. Consulate in Guangzhou for an immigrant […]
