How can my minor daughter and son apply for EB-5?

While your daughter can be listed as the principal on the EB-5 petition, she cannot list her sibling brother on the petition. Filing for a sibling brother or sister is considered a category IV under immigrant visas. It can take over 10 years before she can bring her brother into the U.S. A better solution is that either you or your wife should file the EB-5 as the primary petitioner and then add all members of the family. If the petition is granted and every one is in the U.S., you and your wife can make alternative arrangements on your plan of whether to live in the U.S. or not. Advisably, consult an EB-5 attorney for further analysis of all the options on this issue.

If you make a gift of the funds to your daughter, then your daughter could be an EB-5 investor. The gift of funds must comply with the laws of your country and the United States. Your daughter at age 15 would be the principal applicant. If you and your wife are not involved, then it is not possible for your son and daughter to be included in the same EB-5 case. Your son at age 10 would be the principal applicant for a separate EB-5 case. You must make a gift of the funds to your son so that your son can be an EB-5 investor. Your gift must comply with the laws of your country and the United States.

Minors cannot legally enter into a binding contractual agreement (which is what would be required for the investment), so they would not be able to be in the position of "investor" for EB-5 purposes. If you want both your children to be lawful permanent residents, one of the parents would have to be the EB-5 investor (since siblings are not derivative beneficiaries of each other).

An interesting way of investing. It is best to contact EB-5 immigration counsel to further discuss your question. A question for you: Why are you not the principal applicant, naming your daughter and son as derivatives?

This is not possible. Maybe your wife can immigrate, and after they get the full green card, she can consider surrendering, but that is risky. Alternatively, we are filing with minors as principals under UGMA, or Uniform Gifts to Minors Act.

One child cannot include the other sibling in his or her EB-5 petition. Each child would need to be a principal EB-5 investor filing his or her own I-526 petition. There are issues that need to be discussed with an experienced EB-5 immigration attorney before you decide for your children to apply as principal EB-5 investors because parents would need to step in to execute contractual paperwork with a regional center project on behalf of minor children under the Uniform Transfers to Minors Act (UTMA), or a particular U.S. state equivalent, to avoid issues. These are complex issues and you should retain an attorney to proceed forward. Otherwise, if each child cannot be a principal EB-5 investor, either of you must file as the principal EB-5 investor and include a spouse and minor unmarried children as derivative beneficiaries. You could later give up your permanent residency in the U.S. while your children remain permanent residents and later citizens. If you later choose to immigrate to the U.S., a child can petition for parents as immediate relatives when the child becomes a citizen and reaches age 21.

Unfortunately, since you want to qualify both a 15-year-old daughter and a 10-year-old son, and as parents do not want to be the petitioners, at the very least you would have to file two separate EB-5 petitions on Form I-526. Thus, this doubles the amount of the investment. Furthermore, there would be a real issue in terms of your children having not reached the age of majority and whether or not they were capable of making an appropriate investment decision and meet other legal qualifications. While you daughter arguably may meet the several tests that would satisfy the USCIS, regional center and project developer, that certainly would not be the case for your 10-year-old, who at the very least would have to have some court proceeding to appoint someone to act in his stead. The better course of action may be for either you or your wife to be the petitioner. Given the age of your children, for example, your wife and your children could all qualify for lawful permanent residency with the children as your wife''s dependents. At that point, if your wife really did not want to be a permanent resident, she would be free to renounce her residency and your children would remain lawful permanent residents of the U.S. on a conditional basis. Arguably, it would be better for your wife to remain as a conditional lawful permanent resident, until such time as she files the petition to remove conditions on Form I-829.

One sibling cannot be an EB-5 investor and bring another sibling as a derivative. If you want both of them to be permanent residents, you or your wife must become an EB-5 investor and then they could both become permanent residents as derivatives of the main investor. After you and both children get the condition removed, you could choose to give up your residency without negatively impacting their residency.

First, state law will determine if minors can enter into contracts. Second, siblings would not be considered a dependent of the investor no matter the age, so the brother would have to do his own.

Only a spouse and children under 21 may be included in a petition for EB-5. It does not include brothers and sisters.

This cannot be done. Each would have to file his or her own petition.

It may be possible for your son and daughter to apply. You should consult with an experienced EB-5 immigration attorney prior to making any decisions. In certain situations, minors can be the principal EB-5 investor, but there is additional paperwork for the parents of the minor to sign. The attorney can advise you on these matters.

I think it would be hard for a minor child to apply for EB-5, since there is a requirement that the person be coming to the USA to "direct and develop the investment." Might be better if your wife applies and then the children would get a green card too (and you can as well, if you want to). If your wife does not want to keep her green card, she could remove the conditions on it after two years and then give up her permanent residency status. The kids could keep theirs, I believe.