[HOT] Observations at October 19th 2009 AILA EB-5 Conference in SF

I thought food served at the conference could have been better. Also, tables and chairs could have been better arranged to face the speakers. At least, there was no extra charge for coffee and food. Also, giving conference materials in electronic UBS format was pretty cool.

I was in and out of the sessions, but I thought USCIS officers, Ms. Sheila Fisher and Mr. Blake Goto, appeared to be pretty nice people. At least, practitioners got to find out that CSC denials are being sent out by nice people. But they did appear very guarded about answering questions, although Ms. Fisher's answer -- that third-party (in relation to the job-creating borrower) guarantee of loan made by a limited partnership (not individuals) was permissible -- left an indelible impression to many of more knowledgeable practitioners. She was careful to state that limited partnership or third-party could not guarantee repayment directly to individual investors, thus reiterating the holdings in the precedent AAO decision of Matter of Izummi. However, what they told us about CSC operation left me with an impression that they do not have all that many examiners working on EB-5 cases: I would venture to guess perhaps there are only around 5 to 7 full-time examiners at CSC working on EB-5 cases.

Overall, I got a sense that it's very hard to practice EB-5 law and almost any marketing activities undertaken by Regional Centers in the United States would violate SEC rules, which led me to wonder whether a SEC exemption should be sought for immigration-linked investment securities, because on many levels, these immigration-linked investment securities differ in material respects from what you and I think of as normal investment securities. I was going to ask this question but there were too many people lined up to ask questions.

I also learned from the panel that on most important EB-5 issues, the law was silent or unclear; and USCIS has not issued sufficiently clear guidelines on these issues. I also learned that you have to be ready and willing to file federal lawsuits.

I also learned that if potential EB-5 investors had listened to all the talk, they would be too scared to do EB-5 cases. :)