REPAIR Proposal

Senators Reid, Durbin, Schumer, Leahy, Feinstein, and Menendez have announced a “conceptual proposal for immigration reform” including the recommendation that “The EB-5 program will be made permanent and adapted to increase foreign investment into the United States” (Section VI). The wide-ranging proposal calls for measures to strengthen border security and enforcement, strengthen employment verification, continue support for employment-based immigration policy, and implement a “tough but fair path to legalization for those already here.”

The press announcement does not detail how the EB-5 program should be “adapted” to increase foreign investment; the AILA summary of the proposal interprets this as “technical fixes.” The proposal if implemented would likely have a mixed effect on EB-5. On the one hand making the program permanent would give needed stability (the regional center pilot program is set to sunset again on September 30, 2012). On the other hand the proposal’s recommendation to expand access to high skilled immigration options and eliminate per-country employment immigration caps would likely reduce the market for EB-5, since it would put H1-B visas back within the reach of American-educated children of wealthy parents.