Washington updates

2/6/2017 UPDATE: The news in this post is now all outdated. Please see my Washington Updates page.
–Original Post–
This week Washington has been busy making good on campaign promises and also throwing babies out with the bathwater. Of most significance for EB-5, the President has frozen federal hiring (halting USCIS plans to deal with petition backlogs and improve processing by bringing on more staff) and created two hurdles for new regulations (a regulatory freeze and a make-one-delete two requirement), deferring hopes and fears for the long-awaited modernization of EB-5 regulations. A horrifying new order suddenly suspends whole countries of people from US visas and even entry based on nationality. Senator Dianne Feinstein decided the time was right put her long-running opposition to EB-5 in the form of a bill (S.232) that proposes eliminating EB-5 entirely, both direct investment and the regional center program. I’ll write more about this bill if anything comes of it, but I expect that that the significant legislation will be a forth-coming update to the Goodlatte EB-5 reform bill (last released 12/2/2016). I am going forward with my work as usual under the assumption that reason will prevail eventually and that immigrant investment and the country generally are not, after all, doomed.  But if anyone would like to offer me a chance to move from the immigration business to the walls-and-bunkers business, I’m listening.