Trump Administration Tells Congress to Reform or Eliminate EB-5 Program

The EB-5 program, also known as the Million Dollar Green Card, allows investors to obtain a green card if they invest either $800,000 or $1,050,000 in business or projects that will create 10 full time jobs. To learn more about the program, please click here.

The program has long been accused of permitting foreign nationals to “buy” green cards and some regional centers have come under heavy scrutiny for SEC and other violations.  The program is deeply susceptible to fraud. From both investors who falsify documents in order to move money from their home countries to the United States and launder it, to investment project directors who simply take investor cash and use it for personal means. The Director of the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) Francis Cissna, has called for the program to be allowed to expire as “In the last decade, the program has been re-authorized by Congress without added safeguards or tools for the Department to better operate the program.”

As a result, over the past few years, many have called for reform (and even elimination) of the program. However, despite the objections and calls for reform, the program has been renewed again, again, and again, every time it has come close to expiration. Now, the program is set to expire (or be transformed) again on September 30, 2018. Trump has notified Congress to reform or eliminate the program completely. Congress will now have around 3 months to reform the plan and pass it in the House, let the program expire come September 30, 2018 and eliminate this method of obtaining a green card completely, or, most likely, extend the program again without change for another couple of months to a year.