General Concepts:
- EB-5 stands for Employment Based 5th Preference Immigration Petition or Classification which was first enacted by Congress in 1990;
- The Act was designated to attract foreign investments into US, creating jobs for American workers, and in return, giving the foreign investors an opportunity to apply for permanent residence status;
- Each year there are 10,000 annual visas allotted for EB-5 classificaiton, of which 3,000 is allotted for "targeted employment areas and 3,000 for the "immigrant investor pilot program (investment in "regional centers").
- For those who wish to invest about $1 million (or in some cases it can be as low as $500K as in targeted employment areas or "regional centers") in a business entity that creates at least 10 full time jobs for the US citizens would be eligible to obtain permanent residence or "green card" for themselves, their spouse and unmarried children under the age of 21.
As stated above, this is not a new topic, but over the past few years, this EB-5 topic is becoming more and more popular, partially due to the need for foreign investment especially those that create jobs for US workers during the recession time in the US. As a result, more and more delegations and groups of attorneys and business people are going overseas to conduct seminars there to solicit foreign investors for this special program. From the feedback we learned among our clients, there are many confusions or misunderstandings about some of the definitions associated with the program.
Therefore, we created this section here to help clarify those commonly misinterpreted concepts for our clients and if you have any questions about EB-5 or US immigration laws, you can email us your questions directly to:
Yu, South & Associates, Where YOU Matter the Most.