One of our Chinese clients is thinking about working with the local regional center to develop an EB-5 real estate project. He will personally own 80 percent of the real estate developing company. Can he also participate in this project as an individual investor to achieve a green card? Will there be any immigration-related problems since he will be both an individual EB-5 investor and the project developer?
There are separate rules about how to qualify as an EB-5 investor and what needs to be done to obtain a regional center designation from the USCIS. Under the current law, there is no rule prohibiting an EB-5 investor from also being a project developer.
Does your client already have permission to work in the United States under another visa category? Or will he be working with the local regional center, from overseas, during the development of the project? Anyway, if he is investing 80 percent of the funds needed to develop the regional center project, then I know of no reason why he could not qualify as an investor for EB-5 purposes.
I see no problem with this arrangement. An investor may put in 100 percent of the investment and develop the project by himself if he wished.
Yes the investor/developer can participate in the EB-5 program. However, the investor/developer has an option to be a direct investor instead of buying a subscription through a regional center. It depends on his preference and the business arrangement between him and the regional center.
I think the harder part will be to find a regional center who will be willing to work with a single-investor project, but I do not see why a single-investor project would not work in a regional center context otherwise.
