eb5exclusive

The growing popularity of EB-5 visa applications filed during 2009 and the corresponding waning of H-1B visa applications has caused immigration lawyers throughout the country to shift the focus of their practice.

According to H. Ronald Klasko, a lawyer in a Philadelphia immigration firm, though H-1B visas are usually a hot item – with application amounts exceeding yearly quotas in just a matter of weeks – the cap on visa numbers wasn’t reached for fiscal year 2010 until almost nine months after the first filing date, Law.com reports.

However, EB-5 visas, which award green cards to foreigners willing to invest at least $500,000 in a U.S. commercial enterprise, have kept immigration lawyers busy.

Klasko commented that a widely unknown commodity, the EB-5 visa program “hasn’t really become popular or been used much until about four or five years ago and hasn’t really totally boomed until the last year or two.”

In fact, he called the EB-5 visa “the hottest thing going on right now in immigration,” and has dedicated a significant portion of his work time traveling overseas to educate wealthy foreign investors about the visa program.

In total, the number of approved EB-5 visas has nearly tripled between fiscal years 2008 and 2009 from 1,443 to 4,218 visas, according to the US State Department.