The United States is one of the best countries in the world.
According to recent studies, some 13,500 Chinese high net worth individuals were expected to leave their country between 2023 and 2024. In the case of India, that number is 9,400. Such individuals may find a recent 2024 U.S. World and News Report that indicates the United States is the third best county in the world, just behind Switzerland and Japan to be of interest. No doubt the fact that the U.S. is regarded so highly compared to other countries is one of the main reasons why so many Chinese and Indian high net worth individuals want to immigrate there. The question for such individuals is, what American immigration option is best for them in the case of those who seek investor immigration as an option?
Four Main Concerns For EB5 Investors
For most foreign investor immigrants the American EB5 regional center program is best. Four concerns predominate. The first is will they get a green card if they invest? Second is how long is it going to take? The third is how safe is investment? And the final question is how soon will they get their money back?
The Question Of Wait Times
The question of wait times to get EB5 green cards for investor immigrants is exceedingly complicated. As the the American Investor Investor Alliance (AIIA) has pointed out, such calculations must include, “how many investors have already joined the queue for visas, how many visas will be available, and how visas get allocated by country and category.” Then estimates have to consider family sizes, future denial rates, and future I-526/I-526E processing speed, volumes, and priority.
That said, AIIA added, “Individual wait time estimates are complex and open to difference of opinion, but the big picture is simple: demand > supply = wait times. By that metric, the high unemployment category was clearly already headed toward a significant backlog and visa wait times as of November 2023, while the rural category appeared to have some cushion but was approaching the backlog rapidly. Individual analysis should drill down more deeply and include the country factor. The backlog risk is especially a concern for applicants from China and India, considering that these countries have shown strong demand but are limited to 7% of available visas plus what is leftover from the rest of the world.”
Set Aside Categories Are Current
In seminars offered by WR Immigration, Charles Oppenheim, former Chief of the Immigrant Visa Control and Reporting Division of the U.S. Department of State, assured podcast viewers that the set aside category of EB5 immigrant visas should remain current for about half of the 2024- 2025 fiscal year and perhaps may remain current until September 31st, 2025, the end of the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) fiscal year. With processing times of around 12 months for I-526E petitions, that would appear to indicate that Chinese and Indian EB5 investors who file their petitions now will be treated on a priority basis and may not need to wait longer than, say, less than two years for their conditional green cards to be approved for residence in the U.S.
HUA Regional Center Projects Have Been OK So Far
Until recently, high unemployment area (HUA) regional center projects attracted more Chinese and Indian investor immigrants in the EB5 program than the other set aside options. These projects have been the cornerstone of the EB5 program, with many Regional Centers boasting extensive success stories. Such projects were better understood, often because they were in real estate, and because they offered more stable growth and had good reputations. Projects such as those carried out by CMB Regional Centers, Behring Capital LLC and EB5AN Regional Centers had good track records, and their investors succeeded in getting green cards. Invested funds were returned safely to their EB5 investors historically in these cases within roughly five-year time frames.
Chinese And Indian HUA Backlogs Are Growing
Backlogs are a problem for Chinese and Indian investor immigrants.
However, ILW, an investor immigration organization working in the EB5 world, not long ago published calculations revealed by Freedom of Information Act requests that the line up for investor applications from Chinese and Indians in high unemployment area (HUA) projects is 5 years long and may soon face 10-15 year delays in getting green cards. The culprits are mainly country limits, priority dates and the number of immigrant visas allocated to this HUA category. Fortunately, processing in the rural and infrastructure EB5 immigrant investor categories for Chinese and Indian immigrants appear to be still current. So those Chinese and Indian investors who are filing now in those categories still apparently will be processed reasonably quickly. However, infrastructure projects are not well understood because of confusion as to whether they must entail government involvement. It therefore seems that rural projects are increasingly the focus of such investors, at least for now.
Urban and HUA-TEA Projects: Stability And Safety at a Slower Pace
Until recently, while rural projects promised faster processing, urban and high unemployment area targeted employment area (HUA-TEA) projects offered a more stable, though slower, path to U.S. residency. For Indian and Chinese investors who are already in the U.S., concurrent filing of the I-526E petition and the I-485 adjustment of status application inside the USA offers a way of living in the USA while waiting for approvals enabling them to live and work in the U.S. for as long as it took for their EB5 approval. Access to employment and travel made the waiting time less significant to them. This was particularly important for conservative investors who were ready to accept longer processing times in HUA-TEA projects because of their historical success records.
However, a recent ILW communique warned investors that the number of HUA EB5 applications already received by the USCIS is so high that the wait time for the urban pipeline is already 8-10 years and is in the process of growing to 15+ years. The communique then went on to point out that due to such delays, investors’ children may age out during the long wait. Investors from China and India could also face inordinate delays in getting their money back. If project promoters are knowingly misleading investors on green card wait times that could be securities fraud. Finally, attorneys could face malpractice claims if they do not understand the difference between the visa bulletin and the USCIS pipeline regarding wait times for investors receiving green cards. For some Chinese and Indian investors who prioritize lower financial risk and a higher probability of return on investment, urban and HUA-TEA projects may still be the safer choice, but for others even with employment and travel availability, the wait time of 10 – 15 years may be just too long.
What we can expect
Summary
For Chinese and Indian investors, HUA projects involve growing processing delays. Although perhaps riskier, rural projects may involve processing times as quick as two years to the conditional green card stage, return of capital possibly within 2 to 3 years and permanent status within say four years. Due to litigation over the required investment sustainment periods and redeployment of capital, however, investment capital return requirements may be extended. Hopefully, such determinations will be made soon.
Ultimately, the decision for Chinese or Indian investors should be guided by a comprehensive assessment of their goals, risk tolerance, and the specific challenges of each investment type. By carefully navigating the EB5 process and staying informed about the latest developments, Chinese and Indian investors will make the best choices to secure U.S. residency as efficiently and safely as possible.
