TOP AT TORNEYS IN SPECI ALIZED FIELDS
JONATHAN BASELICE
U.S. CHAMBER OF COMMERCE
Jonathan Baselice currently
serves as the executive director
of immigration policy at the U.S.
Chamber of Commerce. He
joined the chamber in June 2014
and he advocates for sensible
immigration policies before the U.S. Congress and federal
agencies. Prior to joining the chamber, Baselice served on U.S.
Senator Marco Rubio’s staff for more than three years. He was
one of Senator Rubio’s lead immigration policy advisors during
that time, including the senator’s effort to pass comprehensive
immigration reform legislation in the 113th Congress. Baselice
is a licensed attorney in the states of New York and Florida.
HOW WOULD YOU LIKE TO SEE THE
EB-5 INDUSTRY CHANGE FOR A
BETTER FUTURE?
A better future for EB-5 rests in Congress’s hands and our
elected representatives must find a way forward to enact sorely
needed program changes. Ideally, Congress would enact a
permanent reauthorization of the EB-5 regional center program,
increase the annual allotment of EB-5 visas, revise the current
minimum investment levels and targeted employment area
definitions to provide for a truly competitive market to emerge
that allows projects all across the country to attract EB-5
investment, and implement various integrity measures to
improve our nation’s security and rid the program of its negative
reputation for fraud and abuse. Bipartisan legislation addressing
those issues would ensure a bright future for the EB-5 industry.
WHAT TRENDS ARE YOU SEEING WHEN
IT COMES TO EB-5 LITIGATION OR
ADVOCACY?
I have noticed a significant drop-off in the amount of activity
related to EB-5 reform efforts on Capitol Hill over the past
couple of months. In fairness, that decrease has been driven by
other major issues occupying Congress’s attention. Now that
those issues have largely been addressed, members of
Congress can devote more time to their EB-5 reform efforts. If
key members of Congress make significant progress in
resolving their differences on the issues that are critical to any
effort to reform the program, there will be a legitimate shot at
obtaining meaningful legislative changes to the EB-5 program
by year end.
ROBERT C. DIVINE
BAKER DONELSON
Rober t C. Divine chairs the
immigration group of Baker
Donelson with offices in 24 U.S.
cities, including Washington, D.C.
He served from 2004 through
2006 as the chief counsel and
for a time, the acting director of USCIS. Divine is the author of
“Immigration Practice,” a 1,600-page practical treatise on all
aspects of U.S. immigration law. He served for seven years as a
vice president of IIUSA, an industry association for EB-5 regional
centers. He represents EB-5 developers, regional centers and
individual foreign investors, balances immigration and securities
considerations, and litigates when necessary.
HOW WOULD YOU LIKE TO SEE THE
EB-5 INDUSTRY CHANGE FOR A
BETTER FUTURE?
Congress needs to enact more visa numbers, make regional
centers permanent, reduce the new minimum investment
levels, include restrained integrity measures, and protect
defrauded investors. Fraudsters need to go away or be
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EB5 INVESTORS M AGAZINE
punished severely, but SEC needs to be careful not to destroy
viable projects in seeking to protect investors. USCIS should
eliminate redeployment requirement after capital has been at
risk in project for two years, clarify the parameters of required
redeployment during increasingly long waits for visa numbers,
and provide priority date retention for visa-backlogged
investors facing long I-526 adjudication delays under its new
“prioritization” policy.
WHAT TRENDS ARE YOU SEEING WHEN
IT COMES TO EB-5 LITIGATION OR
ADVOCACY?
Investors need to sue USCIS when it denies investors because
of its overly restrictive notions of "prohibited redemption" and
"debt arrangement," the termination or change of a project's
regional center sponsor, "material change" prior to investors'
admission as a resident, and other reasons. I-829 denials
probably must be litigated in the context of removal
proceedings and appeals. Investors increasingly are bringing
litigation against issuers alleging misleading or unfair
treatment.