Problems with the EB-5 Program

The greatest impediment to the EB-5 Program today, in my opinion, is a slowly recovering global economy and the competition by Regional Centers for investors. With 100 Regional Centers by the end of the year, I am very worried that we will see no-holds-barred competition for investors and outlandish claims both here and overseas. The Alabama Regional Center (now expanded into our four sister states) is very conservative and does not "guarantee" anything -- even though our first EB-5 investment project did not rely upon a single indirect job. I don't know what the future holds, but I know we need two things to happen. We need a good bill to fix the problems and we need a meeting of the decisionmakers at USCIS to help them get off their law enforcement approach to EB-5. And you're right. Bill Yates (after his retirement) gave an interview to the Washington Post in which he said, basically, that the USCIS operating account is a Ponzi scheme. Money from one visa program goes to pay for another. And USCIS has made it very clear that it sees EB-5 as just another visa program, sad to say.