How should EB-5 investors choose regional centers to work with?

You, or someone you hire, should perform the necessary due diligence on any regional center and/or EB-5 project you consider. There are reputable regional centers with very good projects, but sometimes it is difficult to distinguish a good project from a bad project. That is why you should hire someone to represent you in choosing an investment. The person should be a registered financial advisor (not an immigration attorney, unless that person is also qualified/licensed as a financial advisor) or a broker/dealer, licensed by the SEC. Also, keep in mind that the new rule that becomes effective 11/21/2019 requires a $900,000 minimum investment (and placed new requirements and restrictions on TEA designations), so if you are planning on making an EB-5 investment under the existing rules, you should act quickly.

Each regional center should be evaluated on its track record and each project should be evaluated on both an immigration risk analysis and financial risk analysis. You need an experienced immigration lawyer active in this space to help with immigration risk and you need an experienced financial advisor in the EB-5 space to advise on the investment.

Selecting a regional center project to work with should involve the reputation of the regional center, its history, and more importantly, the project and the project developer. If at all possible, it would be advisable for the project to have an approved exemplar with prior approved petitions. It would also be best if the project developer had a history of completing projects and returning the investor&#39s money, in short, the reputation of the regional center and the project.

You should engage in your own due-diligence efforts and research not only regional centers that interest you but also their past and currently available projects. Past performance does not necessarily mean a future project is going to be successful. However, certain regional centers use the same business model for future projects that ensures stability and predictability of investment. Your investment must still be "at-risk" to qualify for EB-5 visa. You may engage the services of an investment broker or financial adviser knowledgeable in EB-5 to review the terms of a particular project or projects. Immigration attorneys specializing in EB-5 visas would also be very valuable and able to give you insights on specific regional centers and their projects. Hire an experienced EB-5 immigration attorney to start with.

You can work with your immigration attorney who can review matters of if a project complies with immigration requirements (or is likely to, at least). As for the financial aspects, I refer clients to due-diligence professionals who specialize in EB-5 review.

Yes. You, your lawyer and CPA need to do your due diligence before you select which regional center is suitable for you and your investment.

There is a no specific checklist. Rather, you should with an EB-5 attorney who can help you do a due diligence in reviewing regional centers and their accompanying projects. Advisably, you also should review all information on each project from any regional center very well, because historical record of performance information is not necessarily indication that the same successful result or feat can be repeated from project to project.

You should look at their success rate, measured in part by the number of investors, number of EB-5 approvals vs. denials, rate of return of investors&#39 money, amount of risk involved and reputation. Most of our clients prefer to invest in non-real estate deals and are willing to take a small chance of making a profit in the investment, if their risk is also smaller.

There are more than 800 regional centers. There are some general questions to ask.

The single most important thing to do is retain the services of an attorney not affiliated with the regional center.

To be honest, this is a very general question and you would be well-advised to speak with a broker-dealer or immigration attorney to get your answers. That said, you probably want to pick a regional center that has a track record of getting numerous I-526s approved and close to no rejections or RFEs. You want to know that investors have gotten their conditional green cards and. in a sufficient number of cases. their investment capital back. Some very good regional centers have only been marketing to Chinese investors until recently. These do not have a good track record of paying investors their capital back, but they are still quite strong. You should also look into the redeployment strategy of the regional center. This feature is becoming more and more important, as I-526 and conditional green card approval periods are pushing out. You are also welcome to visit our website. We list there quite a number of due-diligence questions you should be asking before you settle on a regional center. Best of luck!