At the time I am writing this, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco has “stayed” – which means the order is frozen and not permitted to be enforced — President Trump’s executive order barring the U.S. entry of nationals of several primarily Muslim nations.   Trump’s Attorney General will be filing a brief with the court today in support of the ban, at which point the several U.S. states which initiated the legal challenge will respond.  This will all happen very quickly and I believe that we will have a temporary resolution in the coming days.  This so-called “interim ruling” will set things straight for now, but it is almost certain that the matter will ultimately be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court, months or years from now. Given the sensitivity of the situation,…

The EB-5 Visa can be an Effective Method to Immigrate to the US   It’s no secret that immigrating to the United States of America can be quite a lengthy process. A wide range of requirements and vetting has to be done for each potential new citizen, and this can lead to people having to jump through a lot of hoops. While it is hard to guarantee to someone that they will receive a visa, certain programs are in place to give people a better chance to immigrate to the United States. One such method to obtain a visa is the EB-5 visa program. This program allows potential citizens to obtain a green card by investing in US based companies. In today’s post, we here at American Venture Solutions wanted to cover the EB-5 visa in greater detail in order to give our readers a better idea of …

As the headlines pour in from all over the world with stories of the utter chaos, unfairness, and injustice triggered by President Trump’s poorly-drafted, foolishly-deployed immigration executive orders, as always it is the “human interest” angle which most captures our hearts and minds.  Seeing the Muslim permanent resident wife of a U.S. citizen finally released and hearing the JFK crowd cheer is indeed stirring…but the implications being made against the brave men and women responsible for protecting our airports and borders distort the reality of the situation. As you have read, while the heads of every single federal agency tasked with some aspect of enforcement of the executive order have publicly stated that they had no advance notice of the rules, the White House, via its shrill…

Note: the following post is extracted from an emergency email message sent by AVS EB-5 Managing Director José Latour to all AVS investors in the U.S. and abroad in the hope that it can prevent further family separations resulting from the poorly-thought-out and hastily-executed executive orders changing long-established U.S. immigration policies.  We encourage our readers abroad who are residents of the U.S. to IMMEDIATELY contact their U.S. immigration attorney before planning any travel to the U.S., in order to properly prepare for a safe and uneventful U.S. airport arrival. URGENT NOTICE TO ALL AVS EB-5 INVESTORS, PARTNERS AND FRIENDS ABROAD IMPORTANT UPDATE FROM JOSE: Dear AVS EB-5 Investors and Friends: I am sending this urgent notice directly to you to relay some extremely importan…

Prospective EB-5 Investors take note, this is a BIG one: the US Department of Homeland Security has shocked the EB-5 industry by proposing a series of important changes to the EB-5 law which will fundamentally transform the EB-5 landscape if they are adopted (as they are expected to be).   The proposed regulations address a number of items but two major changes will dominate EB-5 headlines as news of this just-published proposed rule reaches investors worldwide:  1) a massive increase in the cost of EB-5 investment for both TEA and non-TEA EB-5 project investors and 2) taking a way TEA status determination from states and handing to the USCIS in order to end the abusive practice of so-called “gerrymandering” of TEAs, via which luxury projects in wealth U.S. areas can procure investors b…

All of us at American Venture Solutions EB-5 want to wish you and your family a very happy and prosperous New Year!   The AVS EB-5 team had a very exciting & fruitful 2016, and we expect 2017 to be even more successful. In 2016 we opened an office in Vietnam and hosted seminars in cities all over the world, including London, Hong Kong, Vietnam, and India. At the end of the year we also applied for certification for our second Regional Center, AVS Tennessee. We already have a lot planned for the start of 2017. We have plans for seminars in India & Vietnam in the first few months of the year and we will be providing you with details about those as soon as everything is set. In January and February, we will also be sponsoring two great events in Miami, ILW’s Latin America EB-5 Exp…

SAIGON- As we gathered at the beautiful Park Hyatt Saigon for the first ILW/HLG EB-5 Immigration Summit this past Friday, the U.S. Senate was squabbling over the so-called “Continuing Resolution” required to keep the U.S. government funded after midnight of the same day.  At 10:45pm EST Friday night, the Senate passed the resolution, with barely an hour and fifteen minutes to go before the official government shutdown. At that very same time here in Vietnam – Saturday morning as I am 12 hours ahead of the U.S. east coast — I was meeting with an investor when I was interrupted by a late night text from a friend in Washington: “José, they just extended through April 28th!” While hardly a surprise since it is what I expected, the news was, of course, a relief.   It seems that the annual d…

For most of 2016 we have been anxiously awaiting ‘eminent’ changes to the EB-5 program, which has received more scrutiny and criticism than ever before by US Congress and other key players in the industry. While most of the EB-5 industry is confident the program will receive substantial new requirements and restrictions, none of us knew exactly when this would occur and how this would impact our Regional Center and our future EB-5 investors and projects. Yet again, we do not have answers, only a new deadline. As of December 7, 2016, the EB-5 Regional Center program has been extended, unchanged, until April 28, 2017. Congress decided to extend the program without any changes because it was unable to reach an agreement on the new legislation in time for the end of the 2016 session. Becau…

As most of the world realizes, the election of Donald Trump as President-Elect of the U.S. is without a doubt one of the most unexpected and far-reaching political developments America has seen in years.   As the first steps toward the handoff from Obama’s liberal White House to the unclear policy positions of Mr. Trump, both America and the rest of the world watches, wondering what the future will look like. In the past week, we have received many calls and emails from current or prospective EB-5 investors concerned about how the Trump presidency may affect the EB-5 program.  Given the tough, anti-immigrant rhetoric which we all heard over the past campaign year, such concerns are understandable…but not well-based.  Here’s why: In the very short period since the results were ann…