EB-5 visa is the easiest way to get a Green Card.
By The American Bazaar Staff
WASHINGTON, DC: The quickest way to get permanent residency in the US seems to be also the hottest visa for rich investors from around the world to: the EB-5 visa – which has been mushrooming at a rapid rate, despite growing number of fraud cases.
The EB=5 visa is available to investors willing to make a minimum of $500,000 in an ongoing project or start a new business in the US, which will guarantee at least 10 jobs to Americans for at least two years. In return, the investor and his family get Green Card(s) immediately without having to step foot in the country, a luxury compared to the decades long wait some legal immigrants with high paying jobs have to endure to get permanent residency.
The Washington Times in a report on Tuesday pointed out the growing number of fraud cases that are surfacing, even as the number of EB-5 visas granted continue to increase. More than 70% of the foreign investors are from China.
There has also been effort by some members of Congress to scrutinize and audit the program next year, before it’s given the go-ahead.
In August, a federal grand jury indicted Anshoo Sethi, a 30-year-old Chicago operator of an EB-5 regional center, on charges of fraud for allegedly conning 290 Chinese investors into contributing $160 million for a hotel and convention center near O’Hare International Airport.
Sethi’s development project had no building permits or construction plans, and he allegedly duped Democratic Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn, U.S. Sen. Richard J. Durbin, Illinois Democrat, and Michael Axelrod, son of former White House adviser David Axelrod, to support the project by promising that it would create about 8,500 jobs. Michael Axelrod reportedly lobbied USCIS to approve visas associated with the project.
Since Obama took office, the number of immigrants entering the U.S. legally under the EB-5 visa program has risen nearly 700 percent, from 628 in fiscal year 2008 to 5,115 in fiscal 2014. The number of foreign citizens applying for the visas has grown even faster, from 853 in 2008 to 12,453 in 2014, the Times report said.
High-profile incidents of EB-5 fraud, and skepticism about the government’s claims of job creation, have led three Republican senators — Chuck Grassley of Iowa, Bob Corker of Tennessee and Tom Coburn of Oklahoma — to request a federal audit so Congress can evaluate the program before it comes up for reauthorization next year.
Grassley said whistleblowers have raised serious concerns with national security implications, and he wants to “sort through the vulnerabilities” of the program.
In 2013, the Inspector General for the Department of Homeland Security harshly criticized USCIS’s management of the EB-5 program, saying poor record keeping made it impossible to verify claims of jobs created, and rules don’t allow the agency to punish regional centers over instances of fraud.
The Government Accountability Office said this month that it has begun the audit, which is expected to be completed by next summer.
Leon Rodriguez, director of USCIS, told a group of stakeholders in the program this month that the applications for EB-5 visas in fiscal 2014 represent more than $5 billion in potential economic investments, said the Times report.
For example, agents of the heavily indebted Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission are seeking 400 wealthy foreign investors to provide $200 million for a $420 million highway construction project to link the turnpike to I-95 north of Philadelphia.