Moments ago, President Biden signed H.R. 2471, a consolidation of 12 annual Appropriations bills into law showing that the United States has once again shown that it does right by the commitments it has made.
The biggest immigration-related provision affecting immigrant investors of the EB-5 Regional Center program is on page 2723, Section 108 of Division BB. This contains language “grandfathering” all existing immigrant investors.
This language is what our organization, the American Immigrant Investor Alliance, has been advocating for the past several months. We are the only organization made up of actual investors in the EB-5 program, a program Congress enacted to create jobs for Americans. Without the investors, there’s no program – and no American jobs would be created.
Last year in June, the EB-5 program lapsed. That stalled the immigration process for nearly 80,000 individuals and created a risk for many thousands of American jobs.
The American Immigrant Investor Alliance was founded just nine months ago. Because of our grassroots efforts as well as support from concerned members of the EB-5 industry, we were able to bring our concerns about American job-creating green card investors to the United States Congress. We want to particularly thank Senators Grassley and Leahy, as well as Majority Leader Schumer and House Judiciary Chairman Nadler along with Immigration Subcommittee chair Lofgren for all their hard work.
AIIA would also like to thank all those EB-5 industry professionals that have helped us succeed with our mission. The EB-5 investor community will not forget the support you have shown our community.
This section of the bill will ensure that going forward if the program lapses again, it will not have a negative impact on existing investors who have invested in good faith, nor on the American jobs, we create. This grandfathering benefit will be extended to all future investors who invest in the EB-5 Regional Center program before September 30, 2026.
The new EB-5 law does not end AIIA’s efforts but marks the start of a new battle to protect investor interests. Over the next 60 days, USCIS will publish rules and update its policy manual based on this new legislation. AIIA will strive to continue our lobbying efforts administratively to push USCIS and DOS for better treatment of existing investors under the law, including with respect to visa allocation, judicial review, and redeployment. Legislatively, we will continue to raise awareness about the tens of thousands of existing investors trapped in backlogs, and the EB-5 interests in visa relief.
An original mailer from AIIA
We were happy that we assisted AIIA in getting this done.
American Dream is listed as a sponsor
