When Will The Issue Of Backlog With Chinese Citizens Be Addressed?

Over 85% of the investors are from China and a backlog of over 7 years has developed. The current waiting time for someone to apply from any country other than China, even Taiwan or Hong Kong, from the application to getting their initial green card is an average 2 years. If you are Chinese, however, it’s going to take over 7+ years and it is growing.

Many Chinese now are hesitant to get involved in the EB-5 program until the issues are fixed by Congress because they don’t want to wait 7 years to get the initial 2 year green card. That is something that Congress is looking to deal with and is probably the biggest issue right alongside the TEAs. If less Chinese citizens invest, then there will be less investors and if investments won’t get funded, then there will be further problems.

Do National Security Concerns Add To The Challenges In The EB-5 Program?

National security certainly has added to the challenges in the EB-5 program and that has been something that Immigration has gotten into. There have been allegations that certain programs or certain investors from China or from the Middle East are raising security issues. What Immigration does in those cases is, if their source of funds is questionable on the I-526, they won’t approve that particular case or they will ask for substantially more documentation than is initially submitted. That certainly is looked at quite closely by Immigration.

Additional Information Regarding Proposed Changes To The EB-5 Regional Center Program

All of the issues regarding TEAs, regarding the investment amount increase and regarding China were supposed to have been dealt with last September 30^th. There was a bill pending in Congress but it couldn’t get passed. There was too much opposition and so what they did was that they delayed it another year.

October 1st 2016, is the beginning of the government year where the funding of the government takes place; it’s also tied to the approval of the EB-5 regional center program. As everyone knows, this is an election year and what will probably happen is that it will be delayed to the end of the year along with the budget. Therefore, we can expect something to happen most likely by end of the year instead. Immigration already have the authority to deal with TEAs and increase the investment amount. The word is that Immigration has prepared a rule that once published, will increase the investment amount from $500, 000 to $800,000 and there will be some new regulations regarding the TEAs and that will become final two months after they issue the rule. No one knows whether it will happen in one month or more because there is a lot that they have to go through even to publish a rule. That is the only thing that could also bring changes besides what Congress does.

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