Beachbound

Has anyone received their I-526 approval over the last couple of months from any regional centre program? Word has it that as of September, 2008, all pending cases may be thrown out until Congress gets their act together and deals with the renewal of the EB-5 program.

Ray

Whose word was that ......

Beachbound

Actually, Congress approved the renewal for 5 years but it is currently being held up in the Senate. There have been some leaked accounts that USCIS may either postpone the program at the end of the month...or refuse all petitions entirely. The Seattle Marriott program has been approved, as long as applicants agree to the new ammendment, however, no actual individual has been approved. USCIS has stated that they are anxious to approve each individual however, nothing as of yet has been done. Either the program will qualify after the "sunset" because indeed it has been approved...or it will fall the wayside like perhaps other more recent applications. The next 10 days should be very interesting...we invested 15 months ago.

snodog

Our I-526 got approved June 5th, was submitted in Dec 07.

Just sitting, twiddling my thumbs waiting on a interview date.

Beachbound

Just curious as to which regional center you invested with? Also, which country are you waiting for your interview in? We are in Canada and the interview is only conducted in Montreal and currently they state the wait is appox. 5-7 months...but we were also told the wait for our pettition approval would only be 2-4 months. We have little ones in school so the time of year this all comes together for us is very important. We were lead to believe we would be gone by last July...now even next July looks sketchy...if at all!

Havnfun

We invested in the Seattle Marriott project 15 months ago too. We are also from Canada (Calgary) but have moved down to Mission Viejo in Southern California on a L1 Visa. When the EB-5 looked like to was not going to get approved anytime soon we decided we couldn't wait any longer due to school, etc. and so we came on the L1. Now that we are in the US I think we can adjust status here so we don't have to do the interview in Montreal.
Good luck with everything.

sinloki

Our I-526 was approved Aug 22nd. We're going through the Vermont regional centre. Our attorney received a receipt from NVC Friday saying that they received our info. Now we're waiting for the invitation to file the application with NVC.

Sorry if this sounds daft, but when you say that pending cases may be thrown out, do you mean all cases will be thrown out regardless of where in the process the case is, or only if the I-526 hasn't been approved yet?

Beachbound

Apparently, the rumour has it that if you have your pettition approved, you would have little to worry about. Once again, none of this is substantiated but it is a little suspicious that USCIS stated back in April that if the sunset clause comes to be, they will issue their stance well before the deadline to put all worries to rest. As of yet, no statement.

sinloki

Thanks for the reply. It is suspicious that USCIS still hasn't given any indication of how they're going to handle pending cases, but speculating about the possible reasons for this is driving me insane.

ian-mstm

You're assuming that USCIS is even going to handle pending cases. They may... they may not.

Ian

snodog

We're another of the Jay Peak investors.
We're in the Uk, waiting for an interview in London. We were told it was approx a 6 month wait for a date............

sinloki

Six months from when? At what phase? And have they led you to believe that you're going to get an interview in 6 months? They tell us something different every time we talk to them, so we're very confused.

Folinskyinla

Hi:

It is best to rely on law rather than rumor. If the program is not renewed, the allocation of visa numbers will be cut back to zero for the Fiscal Year starting on October 1, 2009.

However, it should be noted that although CIS may be hostile to the program, Congress generally is not. Remember that the program is a source of financing and jobs -- something that is important these days.

It should also be noted that in the past there were programs with built in sunsets such as the Visa Waiver and Religious Workers immigrants -- and even when the sun set, it was later caused to rise again, often retroactively.

The religious workers are a prime example. The former INS and now CIS have been extremely hostile to religion and matters involving faith, but Congress generally is not.

klezmer41

I'm currently investigating setting up a Regional Center, but not sure if that's the way to go. Would it be doable or easier to take investment traditionally via loan/convertible-note or straight equity... but instead via EB-5? I just started learning about this today so any help is appreciated.

My startup is a California C-Corp and we're building consumer-facing web apps. I think that we'd be an ideal investment because what we do is transparent. Potential investors can see and interact with works in progress because it's all web based. As an investor I'd be worried about real-estate projects that you can't immediately touch/feel.