Thursday, November 14, 2024

EB-5 on a decline, petitions fall 60% in third quarter

The United States EB-5 is one of the most popular immigrant investor schemes in the world which started in the 1990’s, limited to 10,000 EB-5 visas every year.  The scheme has received another extension until Dec 7, 2018 currently requiring a minimum of $500,000 investment.  Proposed investment increase minimum investment level of EB-5 is  $1,350,00 to $1,800,000

 

USCIS has published I-526 petition status for third quarter of 2018.  The statistics reveal a dramatic fall in petitions. USCIS has only received 617 petitions for third quarter (apr-jun) compared to 1607 petition applications from the previous quarter, which is a 61.5% decline.

 

This decline is attributed to

 

  • Extremely long wait times –  for chinese is about 15 years, India about 6 years and Brazil is 1.5 years
  • Rampant frauds including fraudulent securities offerings through EB-5.

 

For the fiscal year  Q3 2018,

  • 17,000 petitions pending
  • 10,061 petitions approved (quota is reached)
  • 1022 petitions refused (10% refusal rate

 

EB-5 Petitions
Source: USCIS

 

USCIS has also published a checklist on how to protect from fraud for new investors.

 

According to EB5 Daily  For many years the EB-5 Program has been dominated by investors from Mainland China, but do to visa quota limits on countries, a backlog has caused the wait time for Chinese investors to exceed 14 years. As a result, many potential Chinese investors have taken notice and declined to pursue immigration through EB-5.

 

The Form I-526 is the first step in applying for EB-5 fifth preference. The I-526 Immigrant Petition by Alien Entrepreneur is filed by the EB-5 investor to demonstrate that they are in the process of investing, or have already invested the required amount of capital in a suitable EB-5 project.

 

Number of EB-5 immigrant visas issued by the U.S. Department of State from 2010 to 2017

 

USCIS issued over the quota visas in 2014 and 2017.  Approximately 85% of EB-5 green cards have been issued to Chinese nationals, according to Forbes.

 

EB-5 visas issued 2010-2017

Prabhu Balakrishnan
Prabhu Balakrishnan
Founder of Citizenship by Investment News. Chief Editor with over 15 years experience in PR and News publishing. He Loves writing about citizenship, residency and wealth migration. CIP Journal is a Leading publication founded in 2017 bringing latest news from CBI/RBI market.

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