This visa program connected foreign investors to dozens of real estate projects. Is it doomed under Trump?

Posted by Juline Kaleyias on

The Trump administration’s shifting policies on immigration and a variety of other concerns have prompted some to wonder what will become of EB-5.

The EB-5 program was created in 1990 to stimulate the U.S. economy through job creation and capital investment by foreign investors. The program allows foreign investors and their wives and unmarried children under 21 to obtain a green card and eventually become U.S. citizens in exchange for a $500,000 or $1 million investment in a commercial enterprise creating at least 10 jobs.

Continue Reading →

Company seeks to steer international investment to Texas

Posted by Juline Kaleyias on

A Maryland-based company that connects well-heeled international investors with developers seeking to finance real estate projects in the United States has expanded into Texas, and its founder has set her sights on several Houston neighborhoods for future developments.

The company, EB5 Capital, uses a federal program created by Congress in the early 1990s to allow foreigners to receive green cards for themselves and their families if they invest at least $500,000 in a job-creating U.S. business.

Continue Reading →

To Maintain ‘Business as Usual’ Across the Country, We Need a Robust Investor Visa Program | Letter to the Editor

Posted by Juline Kaleyias on

Kenric Ward’s “Inside the Beltway” contribution does not describe the EB-5 visa program that I know (“On Capitol Hill, It’s Business as Usual for Investor Visas,” Roll Call, Sept. 2). While he’s right to point out that the program has broad bipartisan backing, the reasons for that support are far less cynical than he would have you believe: simply put, EB-5 creates jobs and is transforming communities through the power of economic development. According to a 2014 Brookings Institute report, the program has created at least 85,000 jobs since its creation in 1990. A more recent analysis of the program from the EB-5 Investment Coalition (EB-5IC), a trade group of which I am a member, shows EB-5 generated $5.2 billion in private investment between 2005 and 2013 and created at least 31,000 jobs in 2013 alone without any investment from taxpayers.

Continue Reading →

Buying visas with investments is big business. And Congress is taking notice.

Posted by Juline Kaleyias on

What began as a rarely used path to U.S. citizenship for wealthy foreigners has become big business in American real estate, one that Congress is considering for reform.

The EB-5 immigrant investor program allows citizens of foreign countries to acquire U.S. visas by investing a minimum of $500,000 into American businesses so long as the money creates at least 10 jobs.

A few years ago the program was barely used. By one count, only 346 such visas were issued nationwide in 2005.

Continue Reading →

Immigrant Investors: A New Source of Real Estate Capital

Posted by Juline Kaleyias on

When the Athia family arrived in Washington, D.C., during the 1990s, they gained entrée to the local motel industry through connections from their native India. What began for them as front desk check-ins and the cleaning of motel rooms in suburban Maryland has grown into Baywood Hotels, a successful family-run hospitality development firm that has completed more than 70 hotels nationwide.

Continue Reading →