Thursday, September 27, 2018
The U.S has long been an aspirational destination for Indian’s to migrate and settle. With the varied opportunities in career advancement, healthcare, education and a superior standard of living, the citizenship of the World’s most successful economy has been signifying prosperity and success for Indians back home.
While professionally qualified Indians like Doctors, Engineers, IT professionals, Pharmacists etc. and their spouses have been welcomed into the U.S as permanent citizens over the years, the recent modifications in the U.S Immigration & Citizenship laws now focus on creating value for U.S natives and the immigrants through various programs. The EB5 Investment based Immigration program is one such initiative that offers permanent U.S citizenship to Indian’s looking to invest and settle in the U.S.
As the popular H-1B visa undergoes modifications, with stringent qualifying rules, the EB5 visa program has been gaining popularity in India. The EB5 Immigration Investment Program is designed to offer foreign nationals an opportunity to invest in a qualifying project in the US and to relocate with their spouse and unmarried children under the age of 21 years. The investor and his immediate family can enjoy the benefits of permanent residency, work, attend school, or retire anywhere in the U.S. In turn, the U.S. economy benefits through capital support for important projects while new avenues for high paying American jobs are created.
The EB-5 investor visa programme has already seen a steady growth of 30-40 % every year from India and is expected to see a significant increase as we near the end of 2018, due to the anticipation of a sharp rise in investment limit. Currently, the program allocates up to 10,000 visas annually to foreign nationals, with a per country cap of 7%. As per a recent report, India already ranks third highest in a number of EB5 visa applications filed, with a record 174 EB5 visas issued between October 2016 and 2017,up from 149 issued between October 2015 and 16.
Typically, interested investors are required to make aminimum investment of USD 500,000 for a project, located in a Targeted Employment Area (TEA) or USD 1,000,000 million for a project not located in a TEA. However, over the past few months, there have been speculations on a sharp rise in the investment limit, as the U.S government undertakes revisions on the EB-5 Reauthorisation bill, in September 2018. This has triggered a heightened interest in the EB5 program for Indian investors who are looking to seize the opportunity before the revised rates kick in.
While the investor has a choice to invest individually or invest in a larger pool of investors via projects managed by the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) approved Regional Centers.
Regional Centers offer multiple security and process benefits to investors, helping them fulfill the mandate of creating and preserving 10 direct or indirect, full-time jobs for qualified American workers.
Additionally, in the case of individual investments, the investors are liable to create 10 direct jobs while with a Regional Center, they have the flexibility to create 10 direct or indirect jobs.The Empire Outlets – New York City’s first and only retail outlet Center, is one such big-ticket project being developed by New York State Empire Outlet Fund I, LLC, and is organized by the Colorado Regional Center (CRC), a USCIS approved Regional Center for the EB-5 Program.
