Extension of the EB-5 Immigrant Investor Program to December 7, 2018
We are pleased to announce that the EB-5 Immigrant Investor Program has been extended to December 7, 2018, with the minimum required investment amount remaining at $500,000.
Nevertheless, there is trouble on the horizon, since the Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman, Chuck Grassley, continues working to increase the minimum required investment amount, along with implementing other restrictions that he considers important for "restoring integrity" to the EB-5 program, through the legislative process and through exerting pressure on USCIS to increase the investment amount and to impose other restrictions that he favors through regulations that USCIS proposed last year. USCIS had announced its intention to implement the regulation in February 2018, and then subsequently in August 2018, in the reginfo.gov website where government agencies announce pending regulatory actions. Please click here to visit the website page with the announcement of August 2018 as the finalization date and here for the announcement of February 2018 for finalization.
While USCIS failed to implement the regulations in February 2018 and August 2018, as they had previously announced, I believe that Senator Grassley, whose former staff member, Lee Francis Cissna, is now the Director of USCIS and is amenable to his influence, and has reiterated, during testimony before Congress, his and USCIS's commitment to implement those proposed regulations. The USCIS regulations would drastically increase the minimum required investment amount to $1.35 million. The regulations would also redefine the designation of targeted employment areas to be much more restrictive than it currently is, which would have the effect of disqualifying many areas that would currently qualify for the minimum required investment amount, and so many areas will require an investment of $1.8 million.
The upshot for prospective EB-5 investors is that, while the EB-5 program has been extended to December 7, 2018, with the current minimum required investment amount of $500,000, USCIS could act soon to impose regulations that increase the minimum required investment amount to $1.35 million. Therefore, now is the time to proceed before USCIS implements its proposed regulations.