Memes, apocrypha, obfuscation, head feints, hand-wringing, and supposition: These are the misleading and unreliable stuff of the Interweb. To a great extent, alas, they also infect the EB-5 ecospace. This article will avoid conjecture and look at the few hard facts we know about Trump Administration appointees and the positions they will hold, while encouraging
Soothsayings on Changes to the EB-5 Immigrant Investment Program
“It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.”
~ Yogi Berra
The talk of the nation – at least that segment interested in U.S. green card benefits available to foreign investors – is about the welcome or feared changes likely to occur in the EB-5 employment-creation immigration investor visa program. Scuttlebutt and divination have…
All Checks but No Balances — The Systemic Failure to Protect EB-5 Investors
Several widely-publicized actions by the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC), and the inevitable litigation that has piled on in consequence, have pressure-tested the EB-5 ecosystem and found it defective. Simply stated, the system too likely and too often fails. Sadly, many EB-5 investors, after writing half-million-dollar or greater checks, ultimately have learned that no balances remain…
Eyes off the Prize: White House Oblivious to Immigration Bureaucrats’ Running out the Clock
Two hundred days ago President Obama stoked the hopes of immigration advocates with his announcement of wide-ranging executive actions to try — as far as his authority would carry him — to change America’s broken immigration system for the better.
Generating most of the media fanfare and Republican outrage were his plans to expand eligibility…
Immigration on a Clean Slate: Game-Changing Proposals on Visa Modernization
Terabytes of text have already been generated in the course of extolling or excoriating President Obama for his November 20 Executive Actions on Immigration. The prolific foaming of bloviating mouths has mostly been prompted by the promise of deferred action and work permits for undocumented immigrants under the DACA and DAPA programs. Surprisingly, however, his…
USCIS Gets an EB-5 Earful at Immigration Listening Session
[Blogger’s note: For EB-5 stakeholders interested in learning more about the USCIS Listening Session, you can register for “EB-5 Immigrant Investor Update,” a webinar presented by members of Seyfarth Shaw LLP’s EB-5 Immigrant Investment Team on May 13, 2014. Topics include:
• The April 23, 2014 USCIS’s stakeholders listening session
• FINRA’s recent…
Waiting in the Wings: A New Leader at the Immigration Helm
The dysfunctional immigration world continues to spin dangerously out of control.
Do-nothing House Republicans (and five pusillanimous Democrats) commit political seppuku with the passage of the ENFORCE Act — a going-nowhere bill which would authorize civil suits against the President to dissuade him from doing something to husband scarce prosecutorial resources and ameliorate the harsh…
Senator’s Saucy Request Roils EB-5 Regional Centers
Imagine you’re the general counsel of Coca Cola (or of any other company that takes great pains to safeguard the internal secrets that endow the organization with competitive advantages over other firms in the same industry). On your desk lands a letter from a U.S. senator in the minority party asking that your company turn…
EB-5 Immigration Lawyers Wear Too Many Hats
The EB-5 employment-creation immigrant investor visa category continues to transcend its chutes-and-ladders early history. This 24-year-old program — like many young adults of the same era — seems at last to be maturing in healthy ways. Foreign investors have become more savvy. Regulators are more attuned to the need for greater investor protection, as…
The 2013 Nation of Immigrators Awards – The IMMIs Are Announced
Hindsight, the armchair pundits say, is 20-20. The year 2013 has proven them wrong.
The end-of-year’s rear-view mirror onto the world of U.S. immigration shows impenetrable fog. Unsurprisingly, as filmgoers know, vapory views of the recent past tend to diminish the apparent significance of events occurring early in the year (“never has a film…