How does a resident of Pune-India, start a regional center in california, florida or any other state with an established tourism market?
The first thing you should do is set up a company in the United States. To start a regional center, it is recommended that you hire an EB-5 team composed of an immigration attorney, a business plan writer, a corporate attorney and an economist that have experience in EB-5 Regional Center accreditation.
This is a complex and loaded question. The very first step would be to set up a company in the U.S., the nuances of such a endeavor are going to be complex, but it is doable.
It will be difficult to start a regional center if you are not based in the U.S., or at least have a partner who can set up a U.S. entity here. You should consult with an experienced EB-5 immigration attorney to discuss the options you may have.
There are several business entities that need to be established in the U.S. before the principal of the established regional center can apply for designation of regional center with the USCIS. If you are a resident and citizen of India, you have to be present inside the U.S. to handle these matters. It is recommended that you apply for a business visa to come to the U.S. and then make an appointment to consult with an immigration attorney. From your question, I am unable to find out your role in desiring to establish a regional center under the EB-5 Pilot Program. Are you trying to obtain U.S. permanent resident status or are you trying to be an entrepreneur to make profits? If it is for you to obtain permanent resident status, you do not need to establish a regional center because there are many USCIS approved regional centers with projects that you can invest in. If it is the latter, you can only enter the U.S. on visitor or business visas to conduct regional center businesses, which is not very feasible in practice.
This is a two-tiered issue. On the one end, you have the immigration issues surrounding a regional center application and on the other, you have the financial/corporate angle related to being subjected to U.S. taxes. I will speak to the immigration angle. Prior to creating a regional center project, you must have a project in mind. This could be an actual or hypothetical project (possibly an exemplar project if the project is ready to break ground immediately). You then have to assemble a team of professionals: an immigration attorney, economist and a business plan writer. If you are filing a hypothetical project, you do not need a securities attorney, however, if you are filing an actual or exemplar project, you will also need a securities attorney. You will further need to determine the geographic and industry scope of your regional center and draft corporate documents (with the aid of the securities attorney, if need be). You need to create relevant corporate entities, e.g. a new commercial enterprise, form the regional center entity, etc. The business plan writer will write up a description of the project and the economist will discuss the job impact in his/her report. The economist will also help determine whether your project falls within a Targeted Employment Area that will only require a $500,000 instead of a $1,000,000 investment per foreign investor. The immigration attorney will write the petition, ensure EB-5 compliance on all the project documents and file the application on the regional center''s behalf. Your estimated cost to set up the regional center could range between $55,000 - $125,000, exclusive of the application fees. Note, this is only a short synopsis of the regional center application process. There are many hoops to jump through before you can receive regional center approval from USCIS.
Forming a regional center is a costly process and takes time but you need to speak to an immigration attorney about it. You need a team of an immigration attorney, business plan writer, corporate attorney and an economist. All of them have to specialize in EB-5. The immigration attorney can create this team for you.
