The July 2020 Visa bulletin had a big surprise for Indian EB5 Visa petitioners. The Final Action Date (FAD) for India born EB-5 applicants has become current again.
Continue reading “Visa bulletin July 2020: EB-5 India current again”Success rates of EB-5 Visas
What is the success rate of an EB-5 visa to the USA? Are the projects safe enough to invest in?
USCIS hasn’t shared the success rate of EB-5 Visas in a while. But based on past data from USCIS, the success rate of approval of I-526 petitions (The 1st step of the EB-5 process where in the investor gets a conditional green card after 526 approval) is around 80%. After 22 months of receiving the conditional Green card, the EB-5 petitioner can apply for an I-829 (permanent green card). The success rate of this was around 95% in the past.
Continue reading “Success rates of EB-5 Visas”EB5 Info & Updates for Nov 2018
There has been an avalanche of data released by the USCIS & IIUSA in the past two months, particularly at the 2018 AILA & IIUSA EB5 Industry Forum held in Chicago on Oct 29 & 30 2018. Continue reading “EB5 Info & Updates for Nov 2018”
Warning Signs of fraud in EB-5 Investments
The first question on any EB-5 Investors mind is how to safeguard their Investment from fraud and bad projects. In this post, we will focus on fraud in EB-5. As many of you must have read or heard about fraud cases in EB-5 projects, it is very much a big challenge to ensure that an Investor is not taken for a ride. So what are the warning signs of fraud, some of them are quite obvious, some of them not so much, so here we go.
Verify EB-5 Advisor credentials
If you are using an advisor for your EB-5 project, check to make sure that the advisor is a FINRA registered representative. This can easily be done through Brokercheck. If you are in the US, it is imperative that you only use a Registered rep. as it is unlawful for non-registered reps. to solicit EB-5 investments. If you are outside the US, you might use agents/middlemen in your own country for finding an EB-5 project, but remember that your Investment should always be made directly from your bank account to the escrow bank account of the EB-5 Project’s Regional Center. If anyone is asking you to route the funds through them for currency exchange purposes or country restrictions, that is a red flag for EB-5 fraud. USCIS does check to make sure that your funds were transferred to the escrow account in compliance with all the rules and regulations of your country of residence.
Guarantee of a EB-5 Visa or Permanent residency
Investing through the EB-5 program makes you eligible for an EB-5 visa and the permanent residency after going through the steps of the EB-5 process. But any Regional Center/Project or Agent that guarantees it is obviously unaware of the USCIS EB5 rules which explicitly mention that EB5 investments should be “at risk investments”, which basically means that Projects cannot guarantee the return of Investment. Any agreement signed by the Investor and the Project guaranteeing the return of investment or green card will be disqualified by USCIS and the USCIS will reject the investors EB-5 petition. If a side letter is signed between the parties, those documents need to be filed with the EB-5 petition. So in effect there is no way any EB-5 project can guarantee it. This might seem like a small point, but this has happened in EB-5 investments and investors have been rejected.
Continue reading “Warning Signs of fraud in EB-5 Investments”222% increase in Indian EB-5 Petitions received by NVC at the end of Mar 2018
The EB-5 Visa investment program has been around since 1990. For the first 24 years, it wasn’t widely popular. For the first time, in 2014, the full quota of 10,000 EB-5 visas per year were fully utilized. Continue reading “222% increase in Indian EB-5 Petitions received by NVC at the end of Mar 2018”
Top 5 things to look for in an EB-5 Project
If you are interested in the EB-5 Visa for you and your family. Send us an email, we will send you a Free Checklist document explaining the EB-5 process and what to look out for. Let’s get started.
There are many things, a prospective investor needs to do before selecting a good project for investment, the Top 5 things to look out for are: Continue reading “Top 5 things to look for in an EB-5 Project”
EB-5 Updates for April 30th 2018
Vietnam eb-5 Final action date
The May 2018 US Dept. of State Travel Bulletin has published that Vietnam now has a Final Action Date of July 22 2014, same as China. Continue reading “EB-5 Updates for April 30th 2018”
Vietnam EB-5 Petitions cut-off date in March 2018
The March 2018 USCIS Visa bulletin, published on Feb 13 2018, states that there is a high EB-5 visa demand from Vietnam. This will result in Vietnam reaching the per country quota available for FY-2018 by March itself. Continue reading “Vietnam EB-5 Petitions cut-off date in March 2018”
Exemplar I-526
What is an Exemplar I-526?
An exemplar petition is a sample I-526 petition filed by a Regional Center when filing the I-924 or I-924A. Exemplar I-526’s are normally filed when a project is “shovel ready”, Continue reading “Exemplar I-526”