Written By: Attorney Okbin Gil (William Kil, Esq.)
(Attorney in California, USA)

EB-5 investment immigration, which started in 1990, enables investors, who invested in new businesses from $900,000 to $1.8 million depending on the region ($500,000 to $1 million before November 1, 2019) and hired ten or more local employees, to obtain an immigration visa. This immigration visa allows investors and immediate family members including children under the age of 21 to obtain permanent residence.

In 1993, the US Congress revised the Regional Center Pilot Program, a law related to the investment immigration demonstration program in specific regions, to attract more foreign investment to the United States and to create jobs to revitalize the economy.

It is a program that allows investors to acquire permanent residency through indirect job creation by investing the amount of investment in a company operating a regional center without doing business directly. However, the rejection rate of immigration visa applications through Regional Centers increased due to various unfavorable problems arising from the use of expedient methods and mis implementation of immigration laws by various companies that operated Regional Centers. Fortunately, immigration regulations were eased from August 2003, and the approval rate for immigration visa applications through legal regional center operating companies increased significantly.

As of December 2020, a total of 670 Regional Centers officially designated by the US Immigration Service are actively conducting projects in the United States. It is scattered in each region of the United States, and the duration, risk, and profitability of each regional center vary. According to USCIS statistics for the second half of 2020, more than 16,600 investment immigration petitions are pending.