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FAQS
THE 25 MOST FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
The United States government’s EB-5 program allocates 10,000 visas per year for foreign investors and family members whose qualifying investments result in the creation of at least 10 full-time jobs for U.S. workers; in areas of high unemployment where the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (“USCIS) has approved Regional Centers, the qualifying investment requirement is $900,000 (Nov. 2019); if handled properly through an experienced and reputable EB-5 program, such as the one managed by Inland Investor Visa Group 8 (“Inland”), a foreign investor and his/her family can obtain a conditional Green Card in as little as 24 months and a permanent one in as little as 5 years (see Question 19 for more details on the time line).
a. Safe Haven for Money: In a very uncertain political and economic world, the U.S. remains the most secure place to bank or invest your money
b. Education: Your children will gain access to the best system of higher education in the world and you will enjoy in-state or resident tuition at all public universities and colleges; foreign students without a Green Card would be subject to out-of-state rates which are typically 25%-50% higher;
c. Work: You are allowed to work for any company anywhere in the U.S., or you can start your own business;
d. Travel: You can travel anywhere in the U.S. and leave and enter the country without fear of being denied at the port of entry.
e. Legal Rights: All of your legal rights are protected under U.S. law (except the right to vote, which is available upon becoming a U.S. citizen, should you wish to), including eligibility for Social Security (if you have worked for 10 years in the U.S.)
f. Housing: In most cases, it is much easier to be approved for a home mortgage and to obtain lower interest rates;
g. Medical Treatment: You gain access to the best and most private medical care available anywhere in the world;
h. Citizenship: You are automatically eligible to apply for U.S. Citizenship and have a U.S. Passport after living in the U.S. for 5 years.
$900,000.
Can it be in installments?
All $900,000 must be invested before the I-526 can be submitted for processing; however the Inland Investor Visa Program will accept installment payments prior to submitting the I-526 application, for the purpose of securing a place in a particular project and/or for initiating preparation of the I-526 application.
Can money gifted by a parent or other relative be used for an EB-5 investment?
Yes. The EB-5 regulations state that the capital must have been obtained “through lawful means”. Therefore, the only requirement is to demonstrate that the giver made the money “lawfully” and to pay applicable gift taxes, if any.
Each investor contributes US$985,000 to the Limited Partnership: $85,000 goes to cover up front Processing Fees (see Question 5) and $900,000 is loaned by the Limited Partnership to the specific project (see Question 9 below);
The General Partner (Inland) manages the Limited Partnership on behalf of the individual EB-5 investors (the Limited Partners or LPs).
The Limited Partnership receives income in two forms: (i) interest payments on the loan, and (ii) return of the $900,000 principal after the 6-year term of the loan.
A Limited Partnership (in this case, Inland Union Village 2, L.P.) is authorized by the Nevada State Government and consists of a General Partner or GP (Inland Investor Visa Group 8, Inc.) and numerous Limited Partners or LPs (the EB-5 foreign investors); the GP manages the business and the LPs are essentially passive investors liable only for the amount of their investment; the LPs and the GP enter into a Limited Partnership Agreement which specifies, among other things, the rights and powers of the GP and LPs, percentages of ownership, management rights and distribution of income.
IIVG8 is currently working on three projects:
1. The Truax Building in Temecula, California
This Project is a 65,000 sq. ft., four-story, mixed use commercial office building; the project cost $22.5 million to construct and the owner, Bernie Truax, contributed $2.5 million in equity; the remaining $20 million has been raised through $500,000 contributions of 40 EB-5 investors loaned to Truax. Since each investment is required to generate 10 jobs, the Project will need to create 400 qualifying jobs; Inland’s independent economic consultant (who has successfully performed many such studies for the USCIS) has performed a detailed analysis of the Project and determined it will generate 581 new jobs (45% more than needed), so the Project will safely meet the USCIS requirements. The Project has thus far received all 40 I-526 approvals. 28 I-829 were filed and 17 investors were refunded fully their investment funds.
2. Union Village Infrastructure Project in Henderson, Nevada (next to Las Vegas):
The Union Village Project involves development of an innovative health care community on 150 acres that will provide a full range of services from housing and shopping to assisted living and state-of-the-art hospitals; our EB-5 Infrastructure Project is to loan the developers $24 million for the infrastructure needed to build out the remainder of the Project; groundbreaking occurred in October, 2014; and the hospital was completed in October 2016. Inland Union Village 1, L.P. has decided to expand the project from 30 investors ($15 million) to 48 investors ($24 million) since August 2017. The project received 34 (thirty-four) I-526 approvals to date (April 2019). We closed out this project in November 2019.
3. Current Project: IIVG8 is undertaking the Promenade Condos-Retail-Wahoo’s Project in Union Village which will need 26 investors and begin soliciting investors from June 2019. At present (Dec. 2019), 16 investors have been investing into this project.
You are expected to stay in the U.S. most of the time; once you receive a Green Card, you are expected to establish residency in the U.S. (by opening a bank account, buying/renting a home, obtaining a Driver’s License and Social Security Card and paying taxes); you can live anywhere, it does not have to be in the same area as the Project. If you stay in the U.S. for 6 months out of the year, there is no problem. But if you want to be gone for longer than that, you must obtain a re-entry permit (USCIS form I-131), which is readily obtainable.
Inland recognizes this is very important and we have put the following safeguards in place:
The Project Developer and Builder have put in place Payment and Performance Bonds from a credit worthy Surety in the full amount of the construction cost; the Bonds ensure that even if something happens to the Developer/Builder, the money to complete the Project will still be available.
Inland has required the Borrower to retain the services of a Funds Manager to verify that the money loaned to the Developer is actually spent on the Project, according to the agreed-upon budget.
The Project Developer (Borrower) is required to put in place the full range of commercial insurance, including Builder’s All-Risk and Business Interruption.
The Inland Limited Partnership has a first deed of trust on the Project; in this way, even if something were to happen to the Developer, the Limited Partnership would take over ownership of the Building, thereby ensuring that a project worth at least the amount of the loan will be built.
Regarding the Loan vs. Investment, many of Inland’s competitors require investors to actually invest in a project, which typically means that any payments to investors (including repayment of principal) are dependent upon how well the project itself performs; under the Inland program, investors place their money in a Limited Partnership which then loans the money to the Project’s owner – this means that regardless of how well the Project performs, the owner is contractually obligated to make interest payments according to a regular schedule and to repay the loan on a date certain (in this case, 6 years after the first loan is made) – this approach involves much less uncertainty/risk.
No. You do not need to be proficient in English to obtain an EB-5 Green Card or to apply with the Inland Program; Inland has full-time employees who speak Chinese fluently and if you speak another language, we can obtain translators. Please note that investors must sign the English version of all formal documents.
Once your I-526 application is approved, you will receive a “conditional” Green Card which is valid for 2 years – with the exception of that time limit, the conditional Green Card confers all the rights and privileges of a permanent Green Card; 21 months later, a 3-month window opens up during which you must file an I-829 application with the USCIS to verify that the requisite number of jobs have been created and that all of the money was invested; once this has been confirmed, a “permanent” Green Card is issued (see Question 19 for further details on the time line).
A number of documents are required – Inland and the Investor’s immigration attorneys will assist you with their preparation; in general, the information falls into 2 major categories:
Business or Professional background: brief biographies and description of your educational and business backgrounds designed to show how you achieved enough financial success to be able to accumulate the necessary wealth to meet the accredited investor requirements;
Source of funds: you must be able to demonstrate that the funds come from a lawful source; the USCIS requires 5 years of tax returns, bank records and any other financial records to support this.
Rejection in the past does not disqualify you, unless the reasons for rejection were related to immigration fraud or other major problems; it is important that you disclose all criminal, medical or U.S. immigration problems to Inland or your immigration attorney beforehand so we can help you evaluate whether there are any issues or not.
The USCIS processing times vary considerably – we have seen I-526 application approved in as little as 4 months and as long as 14 months; typically, it takes 12-40 months to gain approval for the I-526 application and obtain the conditional Green Card (although, since an interview is required for the conditional Green Card, the location of the interview will affect the timing – if the interview is held in the U.S., the conditional green Card can typically be issued much faster than if it has to be scheduled abroad); then, 21 months after issuance of the conditional Green Card, it typically takes the USCIS 3 months to confirm that the “conditions” have been met – therefore, the I-829 can then be filed to remove the conditions, leading to issuance of a permanent Green Card 15-30 months later; all told, the process is currently taking anywhere from 4 to 8 years to complete, from start to finish. However the timing is largely in the hands of the USCIS and, although Inland can and will move the process as fast as it can, there are no guarantees as to the timetable for a specific investor.
Yes. Once you obtain your conditional Green Card, you are eligible for all the rights (except voting) and obligations of a U.S. citizen, including the obligation to pay taxes to the U.S. government on income earned worldwide. Note that this does not necessarily mean that the foreign investor’s tax burden will increase – taxes paid in China, for example, can be deducted from U.S. taxes (i.e., no double taxation) and, generally speaking, assets need only be reported, not taxed (unless they generate income that is not taxed elsewhere). As this can be somewhat complicated, you should seek counsel from your own tax attorney to ensure you fully understand the implications of this or, Inland can assist you in obtaining legal advice on tax matters.
Inland has been in business in the same location for 25 years; its President Buck Johns is not only a very successful businessman, but he is also a major participant in local, state and national politics – he has been and is friends with several Presidents of the United States as well as numerous U.S. Vice Presidents, Senators, Congressmen and state Governors. Mr. Johns has established a reputation for trustworthiness and success over many decades; similarly, Tom Barnett, Inland’s Executive Vice President, is a former officer in the U. S. Army and has enjoyed a very successful project development career for more than 35 years, the last 13 of which have been in close association with Buck Johns. The track record of Inland and its principals speaks for itself.
Inland welcomes visitors to its offices in Newport Beach and encourages investors to visit the Project site as well. The elected officials in the Project communities are enthusiastic supporters of Inland’s projects and we can arrange meetings with the Mayors and other government representatives. In fact, Inland can assist you in obtaining a temporary visa (B-1, H-1B, etc.) by providing you with a letter of invitation from the Mayor of the Project cities.
If you are seeking investments for the purpose of high return, the EB-5 program is not the best approach; the EB-5 program is intended to secure a Green Card for the investor’s family, not to generate high returns and, as a result, it is much less risky; however, Inland is involved in projects which do provide higher returns (but do not result in the investor obtaining a Green Card) and Inland would be happy to discuss participation in such opportunities.
What is the impact of retrogression on children who are close to turning 21 at the time of I-526 filing?
10,000 visas are allocated annually for the EB-5 category and applicants from all countries are treated equally until it appears that the entire annual allocation will be used up during the fiscal year. When this happens, applicants from countries that use more than seven percent (7%) of the worldwide total (also known as “oversubscribing countries”) must wait for a future year’s allocation to be available before they can obtain a green card.
When more than one country exceeds the 7% cap, then the oversubscribed countries are issued cut-off dates designed to let applications from not-oversubscribed countries proceed first. Once qualified applications from other countries have been accommodated, then simple FIFO order is instituted, i.e. oldest priority dates get the first visas until all visas for the year are taken, China being the biggest benefactor.
As you are aware, once a child reaches the age of 21, he or she is no longer eligible for immigration benefits based on their relationship to the primary parent applicant. This is known as “aging out.” For applicants whose children are close to aging out, the Child Status Protection Act (CSPA) provides relief in some cases, but not in all.
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