3/8 House EB-5 Hearing (TEA & Investment Amounts)

Today’s House Judiciary Committee hearing on The Department of Homeland Security’s Proposed Regulations Reforming the Investor Visa Program focused on changes to the EB-5 investment amount and TEA incentive proposed by USCIS in its Notice of Proposed Rule-making EB-5 Investor Program Modernization (DHS Docket No. USCIS 2016-0006).

The hearing opened with statements from the Congressmen responsible for two of last year’s reform bills – Senators Grassley and Leahy, and Representatives Goodlatte and Conyers. All four expressed support for USCIS’s proposed EB-5 regulations, though Leahy and Conyers also argued that there’s no substitute for a legislative solution. Leahy said that he and Grassley will soon reintroduce their reform legislation (an interesting development); Goodlatte and Conyers did not say anything about sponsoring legislation. All four made almost the same points as in last year’s House and Senate hearings, but sounded a darker note this year – turning “mend it or end it” from a question into a threat. Representatives Sensenbrenner and Lofgren followed with relatively positive statements, listing EB-5 successes and contributions, but both agreed on the need for modernization (higher investment amounts) and reform (TEA adjustments). The Committee then heard testimony from and questioned a panel including the GAO (recapping its Sept. 2016 study on TEA use in EB-5), regional center operators (ably represented by Angelique Brunner and Sam Walls III), an organization that specializes in property revitalization and blight prevention, and an anti-immigration activist. Oddly, USCIS was not represented. (Speaking of which, Colucci’s reponses for the record from last year’s Senate hearing are worth reviewing.)

I don’t have time report on all the details (you can watch the video and read the testimony), but conclude with a few general impressions. Not one of the Representatives who spoke opined that EB-5 is just fine the way it is – all expressed at least one concern, and sounded ready to support mending (if not ending) the RC program.Likewise, no one on the Committee side advocated for canceling the proposed Obama-era regulations – the only question was whether Congress should take back the policy-making ball and act first.  I heard little sympathy for the industry position that USCIS’s proposed investment amounts are too high and its proposed TEA incentive too restrictive. (Lofgren (D-CA) and Nadler (D-NY) spoke out for qualifications considering the urban context and investor demand, Goodlatte noted that he’d been willing to accept less drastic proposals, and Brunner advocated for market-based alternatives.) Goodlatte and Lofgren both raised the specter of retroactivity, which they didn’t call “changing the rules of the game midstream and thus derailing thousands of good-faith investors and projects and job creation” but rather “implementing reform now, instead of postponing it 7-8 years until the backlog is through the system (while not blaming ourselves for the legislative lollygagging that spurred the surges/backlogs)” Even David North was taken aback by the suggestion that Congress could impose a retroactive new investment amount, but apparently Mr. Goodlatte still hasn’t been shown how disastrous and counterproductive such a move would be.  What are you doing, industry advocates, besides earning a bad reputation for obstruction?  This hearing also suggested that Congress isn’t being informed about direct EB-5, and hasn’t considered the impact of investment amount, TEA, and job allocation changes outside the regional center context. Generally, I came away from the hearing with a sense that the House Judiciary Committee agrees about the need for some EB-5 program changes, recognizes program benefits but is more angry than before about flaws, and has progressed little since last year toward refining or agreeing about specific proposals for change.  (However a lobbyist speaking to The Real Deal pointed out that the hearing was not well attended by Judiciary Committee members, so the views expressed may not be representative.) There’s reportedly EB-5 reform legislation cooking behind the scenes, but we didn’t get any preview at this hearing, and the clock to the next regional center program sunset date on April 28 is ticking loudly.