The EB-5 Program: Creating Jobs in America
As many of you know, we at USCIS are reviewing our policies and practices to ensure our careful and thoughtful administration of our nation’s immigration laws. A hallmark of our review is our engagement with you; your ideas and comments inform our decisions as we strive to implement the best ideas.
Through our review, your input and other analysis, we have identified needed improvements to a wide array of policies and practices. Some of these improvements have been implemented and many are to follow. We look forward to your feedback as we make continued progress on these improvements.
As part of our broad review, and echoing President Obama’s call to promote immigrants’ entrepreneurial spirit, we have focused on the Immigrant Investor Program, commonly referred to as the EB-5 Program. It is a program designed to attract investors and entrepreneurs from around the world to create jobs in America. In the two decades since its creation, the EB-5 Program has never met the annual cap of 10,000 visas.
The EB-5 Program often involves complex applications and sophisticated business projects that require prompt attention and expert review in order to achieve their potential. Our focus on this program, and the input you have provided, has led us to propose a series of significant improvements to it. These changes include an accelerated adjudications process, with premium processing; the creation of specialized intake teams to handle the Form I-924 applications, coupled with the applicants’ ability to communicate directly with the specialized intake teams via email; and, the creation of an expert Decision Board to render decisions on the Form I-924 applications and to afford applicants with an in-person or telephonic interview to resolve issues.
Our proposal for the improvement of the EB-5 Program is available here. In keeping with our commitment to soliciting your ideas and input, we have posted the proposal for public comment. We will accept your comments at opefeedback@uscis.dhs.gov for 20 business days, until June 17, 2011.
We recognize the importance of the EB-5 Program and its goal of creating jobs. We recognize the importance of all of our policies and practices in realizing the goals of our nation’s immigration system. Thank you for working with us in service of those goals.
Alejandro N. Mayorkas
Director
Labels: Director's Posts
posted by USCIS Blog Team @ 1:40 PM
30 Comments
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30 Comments:
Simplifying the process and speeding it up would go a long way. People always looking to invest money and this program can be a huge help but navigating the water of immigration process is not something most small business owners can deal with.
If that helps:
1. Make it clear
2. Make it simple
If you clean up your EB3 back log those people will also be motivated in investing their saving and acheiving their goals and generating emplyoments.
instead making more people dislocating from their home countries and their family members by alluring them to come to USA and get stuck here .
first clean your backlogs and then think about more visa generations for different categories.
All are humans with the money and without the money. Dont discriminate people on richness like a capitalist .
please think twice on your policies where are you heading . As claimed its the land of democracy ,liberty and most humane socitey. but all these breakup of categories dividing humans into different categories EB2 , EB3, EB5..... is simply discrimination.
Instead work yourself put more Govt owned factories and produce your own things instead importing from other countries. This will take care of economy and 14 trillion debt also.Educate people on living simple life than and affulent life .make people share , make rich and famous people demostrate simplicity .
Thanks
Please think!!!!!
Thanks
Please do an internal review of your "immigration work culture" for sitting on "Backlogs- Labor" & "Backlogs-Perm" & "Backlogs-Green Card" & many other "Backlogs-other"-say last 10 years. SEE the Adverse IMPACT created On Many Lives.
Positive you will get " NEW Insights" to present a clear picture to US policy makers and DO JUSTICE to bring "profound" changes to Immigration Laws to enable the agency to work effectively. Initiate the move with 'Relief measures' for people who are waiting & waiting.
Our EB5 program is not as successful since its inception in 1990 because:
1. the terms are not as attractive as the Canadian investment scheme
2. the USCIS regulation requiring the investment to be "at risk" and disallow RC from guaranting return of investment
3. the harshness in requiring the investor to proof source of $500,000
Please give Green Cards to all EB-3 applicants, who are waiting more than 10 years.. because of back log. be Humans!
When is USCIS going to post the I-485 inventory?
I laugh at this program. $1 million that can not be borrowed to be invested in the USA just to get an uncoditional green card? Goodluck on that. Who has such capital thinks of US? You all should borrow immigration ideas from your neighbors to the north.
Mr.Mayorkas, Please try to use the spillover(unused) visas from other categories, atleast this fiscal year, to approve the long pending EB-3 category visas. It is totally unfair to approve EB-2 cases with 2006/2007 priority dates, while EB-3 cases with 2002 and older priority dates are still waiting in the queue.
A few questions
+ Will premium processing be available to individual I-526 petitions (not associated with any regional center) as well? Premium processing for individual I-526 will be helpful.
+ Would individual applicants be able to access and discuss their cases with the team of USCIS officers same like the regional center folks?
+ Are investment of $1 MM and creating 10 full time jobs and funds legally obtained are the only criteria? Feedback from a few individual I-526 applicants suggested that it is a chain of pains to get I-526 approved even after the job creation and investment criteria was met. A clear guideline will attract more applications from enterpreneurs.
I would like to know instead of investing half a million or million dollar investment in the US to get green card, Can someone start their "STARTUP ONLINE BUSINESS" like groupon or youtube and and hire hundreds of employees in US. So that category won't match the money we have invested in the US but it will count the number of employment we have created in US.
So, I don't know for sure if this category is available if not there should be some provision of this category to add in the investment category (EB-5) so that people could create more employment which is more good as compare to just invest a million dollar in US.
Regards.
We have to first help so many small businesses in the country already whose businesses went sour due to the recession Give small business loans or grants to get up and running again I bet each of those will create about 10 jobs If 100 such businesses are supported thats 1000 jobs right there and so on
The new EB5 proposal is fantastic. It is a great move towards creating more jobs in our country. Thanks for this proposal!
I think this is a good idea to promote foreign investment in USA where there are people that have lost their jobs because of the last financial crisis. I think this proposal should be aprove as soon as posible because this would help US economy, and I think it is a little unfair to call this proposal as discriminative comparing it with the EB2 or EB3 where there is a large waiting list. Although I am not a potential investor, I think that EB5 would contribute more to US economy than EB2 or EB3. I dont see any discrimination.
Eb-5 is wondeful program and generates win win situation.
The people who have saved or can bring this kind of money are worth soemthing. They would bring that "earing" skill to US. It would firstly bring some money but more importantly an enterprenuer- who would create many more jobs in future.
"processing time" and uncertainity associated with it is "killer" - we need to have very fast processing.
EB- 5 is great program for investing in american competitiveness in 21st century.
Eb- 2 and EB - 3 hoards major chunk of Highly skilled professionals who contribute towards the economy in many ways, to name a few paying taxes and investing in real estate.
But only category which i think is a major loophole in immigration is EB1. EB1 is good as is for showcasing exceptional ability. But i strongly oppose the L1 category whcih fall into EB1. how can a professional in manager category how served for 3 years overseas is elgible for EB1. Don't you think this is a loop hole. Person who falls into this category barely knows anything about america to contribute to america. Please remove this elgibility under EB1. Offshore companies are unduly taking advantage of this loophole.
Please review this category once again. This my sincere request.
Well everything is being done for everyone, from asylum seekers to rich investors but nobody is interested in legal immigrants EB2 and EB3 who have been waiting as long as 4 years just to file I 485.
Where is the relief for people who have waiting for 3-4 years even to file I485. We can understand that GC will be limited to visa numbers but a lenient approach like taking I485 applications for people who have been waiting for 3-4 years would not hurt anyone. This has been not at all an orderly decision by USCIS/DOS , while on one hand they made all current in 2007 , they are now not taking I485 applications even for people with PD 2007,2008 who have been waiting for 3-4 years.
This is a unfortunate indifference.
Comments about Canada on here are out-of-date, you now must invest at least $800,000 and have a net worth of $1.6 million to qualify, which is a much higher standard than the EB-5 program.
My only criticism is that there seems to be a purposely created vagueness put out by uscis when dealing with this visa and it scares off investment. The fact that I could put up 500k to 1 million and not even get a straight/clear answer as to if I will get a green card just rubs most investors the wrong way. USCIS needs to clear up what they mean by having capital at risk means. It appears to mean that you have to actually spend the money, but then they should just say that. also its unclear what happens after 2 years when conditions are lifted. Please clarify on your website, thank you.
Thanks for this proposal!
Im seeking funding for a manufacture business , that meet all the requirments of the eb5 program , How can register for eb5 program for my new business in Los Angeles Ca
Thank You
Kent Williams
Will premium processing be available to individual I-526 petitions (not associated with any regional center) as well? Premium processing for individual I-526 will be helpful.
Please allow qualified spouse of H1B visa holders (H4 visa) can start a business and become a entrepreneur.
I have 3 masters degrees and got best Woman entrepreneurship award from the state. I run a company more than 10 years. But in the USA my visa status is H4. So I can't do any thing (last 6 years) !!!!!
L2 visa holders can start a business.
Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) to provide small businesses with attractively-priced capital in order to create 10+ jobs...no more appropriate time to help boost the US economy. This Department should consider extending the program beyond the Sept 30, 2012 sunset date, and in so doing allocate appropriate resources to facilitate and accelerate processing.
who have L1 visa and become a manager category, do they are eligible to apply for Green card.
My I-526 is still pending after 8 months. I-526 petitions filed after me have been approved. Very frustrating, hope my file isn't lost.
Will premium processing be available to individual I-526 petitions??
How it will be with individual applicants? Would they be able to discuss their problems with USCIS officers same like in the regional center? Thank you
This site is nice and amazing. I love your post! It's also nice to see someone who does a lot of research and has a great knack for ting, which is pretty rare from bloggers these days.
Thanks!
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President Obama is leaving no stone unturned in his attempts to find work and jobs for people. This program is just one more example of his tireless efforts in the face of Republican opposition
My buddy's I-526 is still pending after 5 months.
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