Extension of the EB-5 Program to September 30, 2018
We are pleased to announce that the EB-5 Immigrant Investor Program has been extended to September 30, 2018, with the minimum required investment amount remaining at $500,000.
We had a close call this week. There was a bipartisan, compromise EB-5 extension bill this week, which would have increased the minimum required investment amount to $925,000, and would have extended the program for 5 years. Fortunately, due to lobbying efforts supported by a New York regional center, the bill did not make it into the government funding bill. Instead, a basic extension provision extending the program by 6 months to September 30, 2018, was inserted into the government funding bill, and passed. Nevertheless, there is trouble on the horizon, since the Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman, Chuck Grassley, was extremely upset that his attempts to change the program were thwarted, and so we can expect that he will continue 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, in the reginfo.gov website where government agencies announce pending regulatory actions. Please click here to visit the website page with the announcement. While USCIS failed to implement the regulations in February 2018, as they had previously announced, I believe that Senator Grassley, whose former staff member, L. Francis Cissna, is now the Director of USCIS and is amenable to his influence, will press USCIS to implement those proposed regulations. The USCIS regulations would drastically increase the minimum required investment amount to $1.3 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 September 30, 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 $1.3 million. Therefore, now is the time to proceed before USCIS implements its proposed regulations.