On August 22, U.S. local time, Charles Oppenheimer, an immigration visa officer at the U.S. Department of State, announced that the quota for investment immigration from mainland China for the fiscal year 2014 has officially been exhausted. The U.S. Consulate in Guangzhou will stop processing investment immigration visa applications starting September 1. Processing will resume on October 1 (the beginning of the fiscal year 2015). Applicants who have received interview notices for August and September can still attend their interviews. This marks the first occurrence of an annual waiting period for the EB-5 program since its inception in 1990.
What is a visa waiting period?
Each year, there are only 10,000 quotas for U.S. investment immigration visas (calculated per individual). If the quotas for that year are exhausted, the remaining applicants will enter a waiting period and must wait until the new visa quotas open the following year to obtain an immigration visa. If the 10,000 quotas for the second year are also used up, applicants will have to wait even longer until they receive a visa quota.
Since last year, the issue of EB-5 visa waiting periods for Chinese investors has been a major topic in the U.S. investment immigration industry, like a sword hanging in the air. With the exhaustion of visas for the fiscal year 2014 and the recent data released by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services for the third quarter of fiscal year 2014, there are currently 10,375 family cases (I-526 applications) backlogged at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Assuming an average of 2.7 family members per application, this means that as of the third quarter, the demand for visas among the backlog has already reached 28,013, not including families that have already been approved by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services but have not yet been scheduled for interviews. Based on this number, applicants may need to wait three years or even longer.
Therefore, Worldway Immigration experts remind investors who are genuinely interested in immigrating to the U.S. to quickly select suitable investment projects and strive to commission immigration lawyers to submit immigration (I-526) applications as soon as possible. If children are nearing twenty years of age, it is even more crucial to expedite the investment and application process. However, investors must also avoid hastily choosing projects without rigorous review and consideration of potential risks. The expectation of waiting periods should not be used as a new excuse for regional center projects to avoid using regulated accounts!
The New York Liberty Garden project, for which Worldway serves as the chief agent, has received enthusiastic support from investors due to its high guarantee of 14.5 times. This project is one of the rare high-quality EB-5 projects with a regulated account, where EB-5 funds are held in a regulated account until the project receives I-526 approval, at which point the EB-5 funds are released to the project. Located in a well-established Jewish white community, the project consists mainly of townhouses and commenced construction in September 2013, with a mortgage guarantee for EB-5 fund repayment exceeding 14.5 times. The surrounding rental apartment market has strong demand, with an average occupancy rate of 98% and continuously rising rents. The developer, Lightstone Group, will hold and manage the project long-term, renting but not selling, making the future market prospects of the project very optimistic. For more project details, please call 400-138-2929.
