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Top 3 reasons to apply for an EB-5 investor visa
In 2009, a total of 4,218 wealthy investors from outside the U.S. successfully applied for and received an EB-5 visa. But many are left asking what makes the EB-5 investor visa preferable to other immigration avenues, and what has accounted for the recent interest the program has been receiving?
Read the market
The top reason to apply for and EB-5 visa now is that the market has rarely favored foreign investments to this extent.
Many analysts attribute the growing demand for foreign capital and increase in the number of EB-5 visas issued last year to the recent financial crisis, the Washington Post reports.
Demetrios Papademetriou, president of the Washington DC think tank the Migration Policy Institute, told the news source, “What happens with programs like this is that sometimes, all of a sudden they get discovered, and then intermediaries begin to really promote them both here and internationally.”
Confirming Papademetriou’s statements, the Post reported that the number of private and public enterprises that were certified as EB-5 visa regional centers increased from 23 to almost 80 in less than a year.
EB-5 visa: A gateway to American life
Second, the EB-5 visa program gives investors the valuable experience of living and working in the U.S.
In 2007, French businessman Canal-Forgues invested $500,000 in an EB-5 regional center that funded the construction of Comcast’s Philadelphia headquarters.
Though his investment faltered at first, Canal-Forgues told the Post, that he got what he wanted out of the immigration program.
“We really wanted our children to be raised in a dual culture…because I think the educational system at the university level is much stronger here than in France,” he told the Post.
After a two-year provisional visa expires, EB-5 investors and their immediate family members are able to apply for a permanent green card, and within five years can become U.S. citizens.
Legislators rally behind EB-5 visa
Finally, the third factor making EB-5 visas an attractive goal for foreign investors is the support that the program has received lately from legislators.
Vermont’s Democratic Senator Patrick J. Leahy, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, and Republican Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama have supported a proposal that aims to eliminate the EB-5 regional center pilot program, in favor of making the centers permanent, reports BizJournals.com.
The immigration program was most recently given a three-year extension in the 2010 Homeland Security Appropriations bill passed last fall.