How do I find EB-5 investment options?

You should engage the services of an experienced EB-5 immigration attorney. He or she will be able to guide you regarding direct and indirect investment options. You may also want to consult a due diligence specialist. Information regarding regional centers is also available at uscis.gov. You should request offering documents from each project you may consider for investment, such as the private placement memorandum, limited partnership agreement, subscription agreement, job creation analysis/business plan.

The internet is loaded with EB-5 projects. I would engage the services of an attorney well-versed in the program to guide you.

You should work with a licensed investment adviser to determine what kind of business in which you wish to invest, what kind of return or exit strategy you feel comfortable with, etc. to properly conduct due diligence and choose an investment vehicle for you. This is too broad a question for any of us to respond with any detail, and no one has complete business plans from hundreds of potential EB-5 projects to give to you.

There are many databases for EB-5 opportunities and professionals (like this web site even!), but as an immigration lawyer, I believe that by first retaining immigration counsel, you can have your attorney review any projects for immigration compliance probabilities as you find the projects. In the meantime, you can already be moving forward with the authentication of your source of funds so you can be ready to move forward with an investment as soon as you find an acceptable project.

There are a number of practical sources for introductions to EB-5 investment options. One is to contact the actual businesses conducting the offerings for financing projects that are currently open for subscription. These can be found through online searches for the principals, or through organizations in which project principals participate or in which they carry membership, such as Invest in the USA (the EB-5 regional center trade organization), the EB-5 Investment Coalition, EB5 Investors.com and EB5 Investors Magazine, and the like. Principals will introduce their own projects and likely engage in solicitation for investments in their projects, if they conclude that someone who contacts them may be seriously interested and a likely qualified EB-5 program participant. Another way to reach project principals is through their professional representatives: attorneys (immigration and securities), business plan writers, economists, accountants, and marketing consultants. We all work on numerous projects at the same time, primarily projects currently or soon to be open for investment. Professional reps may perform some modicum of pre-screening (asking a possible investor if he or she has a preference for or against certain industries or locations), and then referring callers on to contact principals within or without those parameters, as appropriate, but almost none of those professionals are investment advisers and should not be understood to be rendering investment advice, but only providing contact information on a somewhat focused basis. Instead, we provide contact information for client projects within the investor's interest set, and leave the information-providing process and solicitation to project issuers. Rendering broad or individualized investment advice is a function for trained, experienced, qualified, and licensed advisers, and only such persons should be relied upon for actionable investment advice.

There is no one-stop source. Once you have an attorney and due diligence team they will help you look at several projects. Ask for the PPM, not just the business plan.

That's a very good question. There are some websites that can provide you with project information. You could also contact regional centers and find out what projects they are currently hosting. You can find a list of regional centers on the USCIS website. Unfortunately, immigration attorneys are not allowed to recommend any particular project to an investor.

The USCIS website lists all regional centers and you can contact them individually to get their offering documents.