Possible Sunset Effects on EB-5 Cases Come June 30, 2021 By Carolyn Lee This is a practical piece. I strongly support S. 831, the bill sponsored by Senators Grassley (R-IA) and Leahy (D-VT) to extend the regional center program for 5 years, introduce strong but reasonable program oversight, and grant generous investor protections [...]
Observations for January 2021 Visa Bulletin China FAD is August 15, 2015, unmoved from September 2020. Note: the EB-5 regional center program was reauthorized after Visa Bulletin publication to June 30, 2021. Vietnam FAD is September 15, 2017, having advanced 2 weeks since December 2020. China DFF is December 15, 2015, unmoved from [...]
Updated EB-5 Frequently Asked Questions (and Answers) brought to you by Carolyn Lee PLLC. Introduction: The October 2020 Visa Bulletin brought important new information to the EB-5 Community regarding the EB-5 visa backlog and visa availability for the rest of Fiscal Year 2021 and beyond. This Updated CLP FAQ reflects insights from the October 2020 [...]
Carolyn Lee and IIUSA's Joint Analysis of the October 2020 Visa Bulletin -- What Does It Mean for EB-5? September 29, 2020 The fiscal year 2021 starts October 1 and the October 2020 Visa Bulletin is published. There are over 120,000 additional visa numbers spilling over into the Employment-Based categories, EB-1 through EB-5. What is the impact on [...]
Material Change I’ve written extensively about the faulty legal premise girding USCIS’s material change policy.[1] Fundamentally, those articles advance a simple point: USCIS should use authority correctly in formulating its policies. This EB-5 Note on material change is more immediately practical. In the era of EB-5 backlogs, EB-5 projects and the USCIS material change policy are [...]
EB-5 Frequently Asked Questions (and Answers) brought to you by Carolyn Lee PLLC. Question 1: What is an EB-5 visa? Answer: An EB-5 visa is a U.S. immigrant (meaning U.S. permanent residency) visa. Another name for an “immigrant visa” is a “green card.” There are different green card categories, based primarily on family-based relationships or [...]
Note: This article originally published June 2017 on ilw.com just before June 14, 2017 USCIS Policy Manual Update released. Carolyn Lee PLLC is re-posting the article by popular demand. By Carolyn Lee* There is much confusion today about whether EB-5 investors’ funds must be “redeployed” if it’s repaid to the new commercial enterprise before [...]
On July 25, 2018, Kurzban, Kurzban, Weinger, Tetzeli & Pratt, P.A. filed a lawsuit against the United States challenging the way the U.S. Government counts EB-5 visas.2The suit can have profound consequences. If successful, the visa backlog disappears. Even without winning, the suit has the potential to galvanize stakeholders to find other solutions to the [...]
Scenario: The EB-5 loan has a 5-year maturity and the note is due. The project has been successful and is completed. All the jobs have been created, sufficient for all the EB-5 investors in the project. The new commercial enterprise (NCE) fund manager would like nothing more than repay the EB-5 investors, but most are [...]
On October 30, 2018, the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services updated its Policy Manual on the point of immigrant investors and debt arrangements as announced on the Policy Alert of the same date. [1] Since May 2018, there have been four EB-5 related Policy Manual revisions out of a total of ten covering all areas [...]
