What role do EB-5 service providers play in the immigration process?

The EB-5 service providers either for a direct or EB-5 regional center project may include the following professionals: the EB-5 immigration attorney, the securities attorney, the economist, business plan writer, marketing analyst, the registered broker/dealer and investment adviser. All these professionals should have substantial EB-5 experience and expertise.

EB-5 service provider is certainly not a term used in current U.S. immigration law, so not sure exactly who are you referring to. Broadly speaking, migration consultants, brokers, translators, escrow agents/banks, economists and even securities and immigration attorneys could be called service providers. In case you are asking whether the migration consultants need to be licensed, the answer is - it depends. For the consultants located inside the United States, the state law governs as to what a registered immigration consultant can or cannot do. For example, in New York City, an immigration consultant is required to post a surety bond of $50,000 and is generally prohibited from offering service beyond translation and providing forms etc. However, the majority of EB-5 migration consultants are not in the United States, but in foreign countries where most EB-5 investors are originated. In that situation, that country''s rule controls.

It depends on the service you are looking for. If you have a project, your service providers would be immigration counsel, business plan writers, economists, securities attorneys, etc. If you are an investor, your service providers would be immigration counsel, due diligence researcher, financial adviser, source of funds advisers, etc. Either way, these professionals will require fees and costs for their services.

It is not clear what you mean by EB-5 service providers. There are immigration lawyers who will help prepare and file the I-526 and other immigration petitions/applications for the investors. There are also CPAs and other financial advisers who help track source of funds and do audited or non-audited financial statements that could be part of the petition. There are also securities and other corporate lawyers who help the businesses that are seeking to accept EB-5 investments to make sure they comply with securities and corporate laws. The regional centers hire and utilize the services of an economists who will prepare the economic models for the projects for calculating the indirect and induced jobs for the regional center. These are just few examples of various professionals that could be involved in the EB-5 process.