RC program authorization (12/7/2018)

FY2018 is ending with a Continuing Resolution that defers the deadline for unmade decisions about government funding and programs, including the regional center program, to December 7, 2018. (The relevant language from H.R. 6157 is on my Washington Updates page.) The history of regional center program authorization since 1992 now looks like this.

The Continuing Resolution means that the regional center program remains authorized as-is until December 7, 2018, or until the enactment of a new law that reauthorizes or excludes the regional center program going forward. We can’t expect more legislation until mid November at earliest, however, since the House has gone on recess as of September 28 and will not reconvene until November 13.

Meanwhile, EB-5 regulations have still not proceeded to the OMB review stage.

I speculate that Washington will persevere in ignoring and avoiding EB-5 because immigrant investment presents an inconvenient reminder that immigrants can bring a wealth of resources – even hard-to-deny resources such as dollars, economic growth, and job creation. There’s a will to brand immigrants as dangerous takers, and EB-5 investors contradict that image. Unfortunately, the EB-5 program still suffers – ignored by the right, and castigated by the left for being ignored even as new policies particularly harass materially-poor immigrants. Recent op-eds are unfortunately wrong in claiming that the Trump administration has made more EB-5 visas available. (In fact there’s been increased demand but no visa supply increase, resulting in backlogs that make EB-5 a slow track.) It’s hard to imagine any EB-5 relief in current political conditions. Perhaps the strategy pioneered at our southern border can be applied to EB-5, only instead of keeping children while deporting the parents, we keep the billions of dollars in EB-5 investment while fostering indefinite delays to issuing visas to the investors.  Or maybe, we’ll wake up one day and remember who we are and why it’s a good idea to open the door to the many forms of wealth represented by immigrants.  In the meantime, IIUSA at least has not given up and has filed an Amicus Brief in Support of Visa Backlog Litigation.

(For those interested in the new policies related to inadmissibility, see the June 2018 Policy Memo on inadmissible and deportable aliens, an ANPRM on proposed changes to the public charge ground of inadmissibility, and notes from a 9/27 stakeholder meeting on the June policy memo. The EB5 Insights blog discusses implications for EB-5 investors, and Wolfsdorf critiques the policy.)