On April 11, IIUSA with the help of its Public Policy Committee, submitted to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) its comments and recommendations on the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM): EB-5 Immigrant Investor Program Modernization.
The NPRM, available here, addresses several important policy issues including Targeted Employment Area (TEA) designation, minimum investment amounts, priority date retention, removal of conditions clarifications, and other miscellaneous changes. In addition to the proposed new regulations, the NPRM includes significant detail on the DHS policy making process, ranging from required analyses on the proposed rules impact on EB-5 stakeholders, to other policy considerations that were not included in the final recommendation (e.g., visa set asides, see pages 35-36).
In sum, IIUSA would be supportive of most provisions to the NPRM with the glaring exception of investment amount increases. With this sudden increase in the market, we would expect the future of this program to be in dire jeopardy, leaving billions of dollars on the table to be directed to other country’s immigrant investor programs.
As the EB-5 industry trade association IIUSA collectively represents big and small projects, urban and rural economic development, and industry sectors ranging from real estate, manufacturing and energy to infrastructure, healthcare to education and more. Our members represent a vast majority of EB-5 capital investment nationwide and our comments below reflect the goal of ensuring that our members and the industry as a whole can continue to drive economic development and act as a low cost source of capital creating thousands of jobs across the country.
