Offering fast-track green card to foreign investors, the EB-5 visa program generates strong and often extremely divergent views among supporters and critics alike. However, one thing we all should agree upon is that it is high time the program is reformed at the earliest.
Higher Investment Requirement
In 1990, only General Motors ranked at the top of the Fortune 500 list of companies earned revenues in excess of $10 billion. In 2016, GM, with revenues of $15.25 billion, was ranked 20th in the list while top-ranked Walmart earned a staggering $48 billion in the year.
In contrast, the minimum investment requirement to qualify for the EB-5 visa has remained the same since 1990 at just $500,000 for those investing in Targeted Employment Areas.
The world has grown wealthier in the past 26 years since the EB5 visa was introduced, but the minimum investment to qualify for permanent residence in the world’s richest and most-developed country remains the same.
It is high time this reform was implemented without any further delays.
Under Vivek Tandon, EB5 BRICS (EB5BRICS.com) are EB5 Visa experts providing guidance to US Citizenship.
Create More Jobs or Even Higher Investment
Along with the minimum investment hike, the minimum job creation requirement too should be increased from the current ten full-time jobs for US citizens or permanent residents.
While the job creation requirement sets our program apart from all other investment immigration programs, the ten-job requirement is just too low.
Also, hiking this will enable us to give investors the choice of accepting an even higher investment requirement, say 100% more, to escape the higher job-creation requirement.
Clearing the TEA Muddle
Is the Targeted Employment Area provision even required today? Will the country or the EB-5 visa program suffer if this option granting a 50% reduction in minimum investment requirement is completed removed?
If retained ahead, then the law should frame a precise, clear, and rigid definition of what exactly constitutes a TEA. Investors are at complete liberty to stick to luxury condos in high-end localities, but they should stop expecting the TEA advantage for such projects.
Improved Regulatory Oversight over Regional Centers
It is evident that most investors prefer Regional Center (RC) investments over direct projects. Yet, regulatory oversight over RCs remain shockingly inadequate. There are too many agencies involved including the USCIS and the SEC, but very little effective control over how these RCs operate.
Unless this aspect of the EB-5 program is tackled aggressively, investors hurt by frauds by bankrupt RCs may start approaching courts and create more knotty problems for the program as a whole.
Adding the X Factor
Why hasn’t even a single Regional Center come up with a world-changing innovative startup idea till date? All the wealth in the world and the entire US workforce at its disposal and the EB-5 program has been all about real estate projects and construction deals.
Perhaps it’s time to offer a six-month guaranteed green card or a 100% repayment of the investment, or some other radical innovation to encourage EB-5 investors to really put their capital at risk.
Immigrants have fueled the American dream and contributed to making America great. It is time the EB-5 program too was reformed towards this end.
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