EB-5 Immigration Attorney: What They Look For In EB-5 Projects

The kinds of information an EB-5 immigration attorney should offer to their clients:

1.Project due diligence.

• Questions an immigration attorney should consider when trying to find a good project for their client:
• Is the client interesting in the normal EB-5 Program or the Regional Center Investment Program?
• Will the client’s Form I-526 and Form I-829 be approved? (These must be approved for a EB-5 investor to obtain conditional green card status.)
• Investing in a project that is “at risk” is a requirement of the EB-5 Program. There cannot be any guarantee that the investor will receive a return on their investment. An immigration attorney will look to see if their client will have his or her investment returned. When could they expect that? How much could they expect to get returned? What kind of interest could they expect?

2. Advice on how a client can conduct their own due diligence.

• An immigration attorney may advice their clients to look at the reputation and track record of the project promoters or regional centers.

3. When looking at a regional center, an immigration attorney may look at past performance.

• However, they understand that past performance is not always indicative of future performance.
• They will look at the number of approved I-526 petitions and the number of approved I-829 petitions.
• They will look to see how many EB-5 investors have already received all or a portion of their investment back.
• They will look at the offering documents, the terms of the limited partnership or agreement, and the escrow terms.
• They will consider the business plan (they may advice seeking a economic planning professional to check the projections outlined in the business plan and verify if the level of security.)
• They will consider the size of the project and the number investors already committed.

4. Immigration attorneys will look at a project’s exit strategy.

5. Advice on materials and documents to request from potential investment projects.

6. They may inform their clients of red flags on projects, such as a project refusing to fulfill requests for documentation.

Unless they are qualified brokers or investment advisers, immigration attorneys should not advice their clients to invest in particular projects.

Immigration attorney’s should provide the necessary information for a client to make an informed decision on whether or not they will want to invest in a project.