U.S. EB-5 Regional Centers extend a helping hand to fellow North American Immigration Consultants

Both the United States and Canada have immigrant investor programs. In the United States, the program is called the EB-5 Immigrant Investor Visa program. In Canada, the program is simply the Immigrant Investor program. While the details of each program vary, there exists as slight a similarity between the two programs as there is between the two countries. Both programs have a job creation aspect to them and both require a significant capital investment amount in return for lawful permanent residency—citizenship.

Naturally, the appeal to the United States versus Canada is left to interpretation by the individual investor. Who, one might ask, may have the ability to influence the opinion of such investors? The answer is: none other than immigration consultants.

Immigration consultants generally help guide foreign national investors through the immigrant investor or EB-5 process. Unfortunately for Canadian immigration consultants, the Canadian government has enacted, and since reached, a quota limiting the number of immigrant investors receiving permanent residency status. Because of the rate at which this quota was reached, Canadian immigration consultants are left in a state of flux and panic in regards to their own employment. What are they to do with the large number of clients and foreign nationals looking to take advantage of immigrant investor programs? Consider the EB-5 Immigrant Investor program of the United States.

This is where the EB-5 Regional Centers of the United States come into play. The EB-5 Immigrant Investor program of the United States also has a Green Card quota. However, not once since the inception of the EB-5 program in 1990 has that EB-5 Visa quota been reached, or even tested.

While Canadian immigration consultants find themselves in the proverbial ‘Catch 22’, U.S. EB-5 Regional Centers are eager to lend their friends to the north a helping hand. By redirecting potential investors to the EB-5 program of the United States, the Canadian immigration consultants will find themselves with continued employment and the U.S. can inch closer to issuing its allotted number of EB-5 immigrant investor visas and permanent residency.

Without permanent residency to issue, Canadian immigration consultants have no product to offer to potential investors. Partnering with EB-5 Regional Centers gives Canada’s immigration consultants a total of 10,000 more potential visas and Green Cards to offer to their clients. Choosing to work with EB-5 Regional Centers and exercising the EB-5 Immigrant Investor Visa program before its sunset at the end of September gives Canadian immigration consultants the opportunity to earn commission on every single EB-5 investor that they refer to EB-5 Regional Centers.

By taking advantage of this unique opportunity to work together as North American neighbors, the EB-5 Regional Centers of the United States and the immigration consultants of Canada can take part in helping to rebuild the economy of and create jobs for the citizens of the world’s greatest nation which, in turn, will benefit economies and individuals the world over.

FY12 Q1 EB-5 Statistics

USCIS has released new statistics as part of the presentation for the 1/23 EB-5 Stakeholder Meeting.

Form I-924 (& Pre-I-924) Regional Center Initial Applications
Fiscal Year or Quarter	Receipts	Approvals	Denials
FY12 Q1	41	14	22
FY11	192	80	51
FY10	110	36	30

Form I-924 (& Pre-I-924) Regional Center Amendment Requests
Fiscal Year or Quarter	Receipts	Approvals	Denials
FY12 Q1	17	4	3
FY11	86	43	7
FY10	42	42	11

Form I-526 Petition Final Actions
Fiscal Year and/or Quarter	Form I-526 Approvals	Final Action %	Form I-526 Denials	Final Action %
FY12 Q1	1,076	83%	222	17%
FY11	1,563	81%	371	19%
FY10	1,369	89%	165	11%
FY09	1,262	86%	207	14%
FY08	640	84%	120	16%
FY07	473	76%	148	24%
FY06	336	73%	124	27%
FY05	179	53%	156	47%

Form I-829 Petition Final Actions
Fiscal Year and/or Quarter	Form I-829 Approvals	Final Action %	Form I-829 Denials	Final Action %
FY12 Q1	144	93%	11	7%
FY11	1,067	96%	46	4%
FY10	274	83%	56	17%
FY09	347	86%	56	14%
FY08	159	70%	68	30%
FY07	111	69%	49	31%
FY06	106	64%	59	36%
FY05	184	62%	112	38%

EB-5 Visa Usage
Fiscal Year	Total EB-5 Visas Issued
FY12 YTD*	2,364
FY11	3,463
FY10	1,885
FY09	4,218
FY08	1,360
FY07	806
FY06	744
FY05	158
*Estimate of FY12 Visas Issued YTD, reported by the Department of State as of 01/17/2012.

Attention: International Students EB-5 is for you!

Attention: International Students EB-5 is for you!

Second semester senior year is supposed to be both exciting and relaxing for college students. Finishing up your major, interviewing for jobs, and planning trips to Europe consume your last few months as a full-time student. But what if that trip you were planning—Europe, Asia, anywhere—was going to be permanent? At this time, international students studying in the United States are faced not only with a slow and challenging economy and job market; they are also struggling to get sponsorship for H-1 or work visas.

Consider this scenario: At age 18, you receive a student visa and decide to study in the United States. It is 2008, and while the job market is not completely awful in the U.S., you are confident that things will turn around by the time you are ready to graduate in 2012. Now, fast forward through those four years of undergrad. It is now 2012 and you are getting ready to walk across that stage. Nerves set in, because the job market has not picked up as hoped and the companies that are hiring graduates are looking to hire U.S. citizens and forego the H-1 or work visa paper process. You feel stuck. You feel helpless. You have just spent the last four years of your life networking, studying, interning, and giving everything you could to your community and now you have no choice but to leave. Wasn’t the reason you decided to study in the United States in the first place to learn as much as you could and then find a job and stay here? Your dreams are shattered.

Chicagoland Foreign Investment Group, LLC (CFIG) understands your concerns and offers you an option that will allow you obtain a U.S. Green Card within one year and restore those dreams. It is called EB-5. The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services’ (USCIS) EB-5 immigrant investor program is designed to address the issues of job creation and economic development while, at the same time, providing investors with U.S. Green Cards. CFIG has been designated as a USCIS EB-5 regional center, allowing them facilitate match EB-5 qualifying projects with EB-5 investors.

The minimum investment requirement for EB-5 is $500,000 in a targeted employment area or $1,000,000 in any other area within an EB-5 regional center’s designated operating area. By investing through an EB-5 regional center, like CFIG, much of the stress investors fear is alleviated. CFIG vets projects and structures business plans to ensure EB-5 compliance. Each EB-5 investment creates 10 jobs—directly or indirectly—and helps stimulate local economies. It is this job creation that helps to stimulate the economy.

While EB-5 investors are not employed by the projects in which they invest, the EB-5 regional center’s projects are helping to stimulate the economy. A growing economy leads to increased hiring in general and increased hiring creates a more promising job market for graduating students and international students.

EB-5 Investor Program; Choosing the Right Path

Social and political instability worldwide has led an ever-increasing number of nouveau riche foreign nationals to research and consider USCIS’s EB-5 program. While the investment itself must be considered ‘at-risk’, more and more investors are factoring in better property protection, living environment, and education for kids through immigration to the United States as additional benefits of the EB-5 program. These seemingly added bonuses have enticed enough foreign nationals to apply for permanent residency through the EB-5 program at a rate in 2011 that is double that of 2010 and ten times greater than 2007.

One of the many challenges to the EB-5 program is the comparatively higher labor costs. The manufacturing industry has seen a strong shift in outsourcing in the last decade or so in efforts to keep prices down and remain competitive in a global marketplace. Because the EB-5 jobs must be created for American workers, the labor costs could leave businesses operating at a loss. In the event that a business fails to sustain the EB-5 required number of jobs for the two year conditional period, applicants run the risk of a cancelled application.

With all of these risk factors, how do EB-5 investors mitigate the risks their investment. EB-5 investors should be given all of the information about the program, its risks, and the projects in which they are investing. Chicagoland Foreign Investment Group (CFIG) is a United States Citizenship and Immigration Services EB-5 Regional Center that prides itself on its honesty and integrity. CFIG’s Executive Director, Taher Kameli, has been involved in both immigration and international business law for almost two decades and fully understands the EB-5 Immigrant Investor Program and immigration processes.

Although the trend internationally is for migration agents to ignore risk factors when offering EB-5 projects, CFIG operate differently. CFIG provide honest disclosure to accredited investors and extends its responsibility further to helps guide EB-5 investors through the processes. CFIG recognizes how significant a risk and change EB-5 investors assume, and therefore, treats every investor as an individual versus a mere source of capital.

To EB-5 or not to EB-5?

The term ‘EB-5’ has been buzzing around a lot lately. But what is EB-5? What does it stand for? And, more importantly, what does EB-5 mean for me? First things first: EB-5 is a United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) Immigrant Investor Program. The program was created in 1990 to stimulate the US economy through job creation and capital investment by foreign nationals. Because of the sustainable job creation of each investment, the US government allows EB-5 investors to apply for permanent residency within the United States. Due to the unfortunate state of the US economy, the EB-5 Program has seen a significant increase in popularity as it addresses several fundamental needs that can help to restore the economy—job creation, economic stimulation, and alternative funding sources.

For a firmer grip on what EB-5 is, we must answer the second question: What does EB-5 stand for? EB-5 stands for Employment Based-Fifth Preference. There are five ways to obtain US visas through employment. The first four preferences relate to your own employment. The last, or fifth, preference requires that the applicant employ others. Since the Immigrant Investor Program focuses on job creation and the employment of others, it satisfies the fifth preference and is thus called the EB-5 Immigrant Investor Program, or EB-5, for short.

Finally, the most important question: What does EB-5 mean for me? By its very nature, the EB-5 program provides plenty of benefits to US citizens. The purpose of the program is to create jobs and stimulate local economies through foreign investments. Jobs are created in areas of high unemployment and employ US citizens. With the addition of jobs, the EB-5 Program helps to stimulate the economy as additional revenue is introduced into the area. The biggest perk of all: these benefits are achieved through EB-5 investment funds—not US tax dollars.

So how do these EB-5 investors create the jobs through their investments? The easiest way is to team up with a Regional Center. Two years after the EB-5 Immigrant Investor Program was created, the USCIS introduced the EB-5 Pilot Program. The EB-5 Pilot Program created the Regional Center. A Regional Center is a United States government approved entity dedicated to the promotion of economic growth, improved regional productivity, job creation, and increased domestic capital investment of a regional.

Regional Centers, like Chicagoland Foreign Investment Group (CFIG), facilitate the matching of foreign investment funds with viable projects. CFIG, in particular, is approached both by foreign nationals interested in obtaining an EB-5 visa and local businesses and projects in search of alternative funding sources. Regional Centers are popping up all across the country. The past few years have seen a growth in the number of designated EB-5 Regional Centers nationwide of over one hundred percent.

The seemingly overwhelming immigration and funding processes can be easily managed by the firms associated with Regional Centers. For example, CFIG was born out of both the need for a Regional Center in Chicago and its principal’s 16 years of experience as an immigration and international business law attorney. Regional Centers offer the perfect starting point for discovering the role that the EB-5 Immigrant Investor Program can play in your life and the life of your project.

EB-5 Investor Immigration Program: EB-5 Investors Can Boost Employment

EB-5 Investor Immigration Program: EB-5 Investors Can Boost Employment: How Foreign Investors Can Boost Employment With the continued economic instability, elected officials in all major cities, including C...

EB-5 101

Launched in 1990, the EB-5 immigrant investor program was designed to stimulate the U.S. economy by attracting foreign investors able to create jobs. Often incorrectly labeled an immigration program, Chicagoland Foreign Investment Group recognizes the importance of properly explaining EB-5’s origin, mission, and terminology in order to elucidate the many economic benefits.

 At Chicagoland Foreign Investment Group, we recognize that the EB-5 visa category has been instrumental for both foreign nationals interested in investing in the U.S. and for job creation. The name of the program comes from the fact that this visa is the 5th category of employment based (EB) visas. Ten thousand visas are set aside annually for investors and their immediate family members under the program. Each investment must create at least 10 new jobs.

What Are the Basic Criteria Required for an EB-5 Visa? In order to qualify for an EB-5 Visa, an investor must invest at least $1,000,000, or $500,000 for a project in a “targeted employment area” (as discussed below), in an enterprise that will create at least 10 new full-time jobs for U.S. citizens and legal residents. If the project is an existing business, the 10 new jobs have to be in addition to the existing jobs in the business. Chicagoland Foreign Investment Group can help further demystify the visa application process.

What is a Targeted Employment Area? A targeted employment area is any city, county, census tract or other geographical area accepted by the USCIS that has an unemployment rate over 150% of the national average rate, or a “rural area.” A rural area is an area outside a metropolitan statistical area or outer boundary of any city or town having a population of 20,000 or more.

What is an EB-5 Regional Center? A Regional Center is an entity created by either a public or private group to sponsor projects for EB-5 investors. There are currently about 150 approved Regional Centers, but many more applications are pending with the USCIS and are expected to be approved if their business plans are considered feasible and meet the job creation criteria. According to the trade association IIUSA, Regional Centers have invested over $2.0 billion of foreign capital, creating over 50,000 jobs in the U.S. Chicagoland Foreign Investment Group has the only regional center that allows investors to invest on themselves and play a vital role in their own projects

Who are the EB-5 Investors? EB-5 investors can come from any country outside the U.S., and can even include people who are in the U.S. legally under a temporary visa. In the first three quarters of fiscal 2011, over 70% of all EB-5 investors have come from mainland China and Dubai, where Chicagoland Foreign Investment Group has very strong contacts.

What issue has caused the most problem when applying for an EB-5 visa? The most common problem area has been insufficient documentation of the source of funds. Many people try to disclose the least possible information only to have the file returned with a request for further information.

With the continued economic instability in the United States, the EB-5 program offers a tremendous opportunity to build infrastructure and promote job growth. Chicagoland Foreign Investment group remains committed to both educating and promoting this powerful stimulus program.