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Senators: Make EB-5 visa regional centers permanent
Congressional members from both parties are throwing their support behind an effort to maintain EB-5 visa regional centers.
Bipartisan support, which is particularly rare on immigration issues, has lead lawmakers to support proposal that aims to eliminate the EB-5 regional center pilot program, which has continually been extended since its establishment in the 1990s, in favor of making the centers permanent, the Washington Post reports.
Vermont’s Democratic Senator Patrick J. Leahy, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, and Republican Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama have led the charge.
“Once [regional centers] are permanent, I think we’re really going to see the true value of this,” Leahy told the news source.
He added, “At a time when we’re seeing so many of our jobs exported out of the country, [the EB-5 visa program] creates jobs in the U.S.”
Under the EB-5 Regional Center Investment program, a private enterprise or government agency with a targeted investment program can be approved to allocate 3,000 green cards each year for foreign investors in a designated geographic region.
The immigration program was most recently given a three-year extension in the 2010 Homeland Security Appropriations bill passed last fall.