IIUSA Executive Director, Aaron Grau, shares his perspectives with Investment Migration Insider readers on the EB-5 Program and its role as a job-creation catalyst. In Mr. Grau’s most recent column for IMI he notes, “If we begin any EB-5 policy analysis at this point, understanding why Congress created the Eb-5 category and later, to capitalize on its possibilities and accelerate its impact, the Regional Center Program, then we must view EB-5 as an economic development program, not an immigration program. It’s about creating American jobs.”
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Originally Published in Investment Migration Insider
by Aaron Grau, Executive Director, IIUSA
Congress created the EB-5 program in 1990. The new visa program was intended to create jobs for U.S. workers and infuse new capital into the U.S. economy. In fact, in 1989 the Senate Judiciary Committee, then chaired by Senator Joe Biden, stated, “[a]mended section 203(b)(4) is intended to create new employment for U.S. workers and to infuse new capital into the country, not to provide immigrant visas to wealthy individuals.” Senate Report No. 101-55 at p. 21 (1989).
Let’s rewind and go back to that last sentence, it’s important to not gloss over the citation. I am not writing rhetorically or offering a tired talking point. Congress intended EB-5 visa recipients to create jobs for U.S. workers and infuse new capital into the U.S. economy. The report accompanied S.358, “to amend the Immigration and Nationality Act to change the level, and preference system for admission, of immigrants to the United States and the naturalization process” and Chairman Biden’s committee, “favorably reported the bill…and recommend[ed] that the bill, as amended, do pass.” Ibid at. p.1.
If we begin any EB-5 policy analysis at this point, understanding why Congress created the EB-5 category and later, to capitalize on its possibilities and accelerate its impact, the Regional Center Program, then we must view EB-5 as an economic development program, not an immigration program. It’s about creating American jobs.
