EB-5 Regulation

From: Townhall | Opinion

Steve Sherman

President Barack Obama pushed out a flurry of regulations intended on being political time bombs for the Trump Administration. A good percentage of those destructive regulations were undone by the Congressional Review Act and others were stopped by Trump Administration officials if the process to implement the proposed regulations had not started yet. One problematic regulation has been kept alive by a Trump Administration staffer deals with a niche immigration issue.

Creating Jobs for American Living in Rural and High Unemployment Areas

CRE’s petition seeks to unleash the job-creating power of the EB-5 program through a literal reading of the underlying statute.

The law requires that EB-5 applicants taking advantage of the Target Employment Area (TEA) provisions of the program create jobs in rural and high unemployment areas. CRE proposes that DHS implement this provision by requiring that only direct jobs documented as being held by people living in rural and high unemployment areas count in assessing whether a project qualifies for TEA benefits.

CRE Petition for Rulemaking

Editor’s Note: A successful petition is often premised on:

(1) Stakeholders posting comments on the petition in the space provided below

      Here is the result of informed comments.

(2) The credibility of the organization sponsoring the petition

All stakeholders are encouraged to submit comments in the space provided below; we accept anonymous comments.

From: Reuters

Herbert Lash

From: CircleID

By Bruce Levinson

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There is no statutory requirement that new commercial enterprises be physically located in TEAs in order for investors to qualify for the TEA provisions of the EB-5 program. To the contrary, the statute states that investor visas “shall be reserved for qualified immigrants who invest in a new commercial enterprise … which will create employment in a targeted employment area.”

VTDigger published an article titled, “Judge quashes whistleblower deposition in EB-5 investor case against state.” The article reads in part as follows;

“A judge has ruled that, for now, defrauded EB-5 investors in a class action lawsuit against the state cannot take the deposition of a key whistleblower in the case.

Lamoille County Superior Court Judge Thomas Carlson quashed the plaintiffs’ request for the deposition of Douglas Hulme, citing state rules prohibiting discovery until the defense has an opportunity to respond.

The Unified Agenda Update shows that DHS’s path for complying with President Trump’s one-in, two-out Executive Order 13771 has become a tight needle to thread. The Update lists over a dozen DHS rules in Final Rule Stage. Within USCIS alone, there are four rules in the Final Rule stage and another three rules in the Proposed Rule Stage.

New additions to DHS/USCIS list of regulations in the Final Rule Stage include

• The EB-5 Immigrant Investor Program Modernization rule which previously was in the proposed rule stage.

OMB guidelines implementing the DQA state:

As a matter of good and effective agency information resources management, agencies shall develop a process for reviewing the quality (including the objectivity, utility, and integrity) of information before it is disseminated.

An agency spokesman replied that it would comply with all applicable statutes and regulations, including the Data Quality Act. The agency is to be complimented for  its commitment to the quality of the information  it disseminates.

Editor’s Note: One  of the loudest criticisms of the EB-5 program is that it harbors fraudulent actions. A widely reported action deals with the “the largest fraud case in the federal EB-5 immigrant investment program’s history.”  The USCIS proposed regulations do not address fraud; for this reason   CRE is examining a range of options for combatting fraud and will be reporting its findings on this website.  If implemented the CRE option will allow the honest participants in the program to continue operations without a dark cloud over their operations.