EB-5 Visa Program News Blog: EB-5 Program

EB-5 Visa Program News Blog: EB-5 Program: A True Melting Pot: The USA and EB-5 Immigration The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) makes available 10,000 Uni...

EB-5 Program

A True Melting Pot: The USA and EB-5 Immigration

The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) makes available 10,000 United States EB-5 visas for EB-5 investors and their families annually. Although the USCIS has established this figure for possible EB-5 visas per year, the number of EB-5 visas actually issued every year is far less. For example, for Fiscal Years 2005-2011, the EB-5 visa usage was: 158, 744, 806, 1,360, 4,218, 1,885 and 3,463 respectively. Even with an outlying figure like that of 2009, the EB-5 visa usage for Quarter 1 of Fiscal Year 2012 is 2,364. That number puts EB-5 visa usage for FY12 well on its way reaching the 10,000 EB-5 visa limits.

What does the FY12 EB-5 visa usage figure mean? And what has accounted for such an increase in usage? The answer to the first question is three-fold. First, the increased EB-5 visas quite literally means that more high wealth foreign nationals have been granted legal permanent residency in the United States and are therefore increasing local spending and boosting local economies. Second, increased EB-5 visas translates into increased EB-5 investments, which ultimately translates into increased projects being funded by EB-5 money. Last, and most importantly, increased EB-5 visa usage means an increase in American jobs. The USCIS estimates that each EB-5 investment results in an average of 2.5 EB-5 visas. If each EB-5 investment creates the minimum required 10 jobs and we divide the total number of EB-5 visas used by the 2.5 EB-5 investment average, then we can conclude that nearly 10,000 jobs were created for American workers in the First Quarter of FY12 through the EB-5 program.

Addressing the second question, this dramatic increase in EB-5 visa usage could be a result of several factors. First, 2012 is an election year. One of the key issues that candidates are focusing on is the jobs problem in the United States. The charter of the EB-5 program is rooting in the concept of job creation. President Obama, while not directly naming the USCIS’s EB-5 Immigrant Investor Visa Program, has alluded to ‘foreign investments’ several times in recent months. It would behoove any and all candidates to consider using the EB-5 program as one component in helping to address the jobs problem in the United States.

There has also been an increase in the number of I-924’s filed in the First Quarter of FY12. The I-924 is an application for either the designation of a new regional center or the expansion of an existing one. Regional centers exist to facilitate the matching of EB-5 investors and projects in need of funding. Therefore, it only makes sense that increased EB-5 regional centers increases the overall EB-5 visa usage.

On a final note, the ever-prevalent notion that the US economic outlook remains dim in the short term also lends itself a possible explanation for the increase in EB-5 visa usage. Bank lending has not dramatically improved since its downturn and projects that may have been holding out for traditional funding are now more willing to accept nontraditional sources of funding. The EB-5 program has been around for over two decades and, in this time of both job creation and funding need, is now a more attractive and more viable option for projects.

In summary, the increase in EB-5 visa usage, as demonstrated by the YTD figures of FY12 as reported by the USCIS, implies not only that jobs are being created, projects are being funded, and businesses are opening across the country in several different industries, but, more importantly, that the future of the United States economy and job market is looks to be brighter and more hopeful as EB-5 immigrant investors help to develop and rescue the world’s great Melting Pot that is the United States of America.