TOP ECONOMISTS
JEFFREY CARR
ECONOMIC & POLICY RESOURCES, INC.
Jeffrey Carr is the president
and senior economist of
Economic & Policy Resources,
Inc. He has more than 35 years
of experience as an economist,
analyst and business plan writer. Carr has worked in the U.S.
Congress as well as under several governor administrations
in the State of Vermont. In addition to his applied economics
practice, Carr has lectured on the EB-5 program throughout
the U.S. and China, and has completed more than 275
assignments under the program, including impact studies,
business plans, TEAs and regional center business operation
plans. He has been involved with IIUSA’s public policy
committee since 2013.
WHY DID YOU GET INVOLVED
IN THE EB-5 INDUSTRY?
Although our initial involvement in EB-5 began in the late 1990s,
our company first entered into the industry as a service provider
in 2004 when a project developer asked for assistance to apply
for a regional center in Florida. This work was a logical extension
of our national track record of completing economic impact
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EB5 INVESTORS M AGAZINE
studies and providing expert witness testimony for cases
throughout the country. The more experience we gained with
EB-5, the more we were committed to helping immigrant families
coming to the U.S. while creating hundreds of thousands of jobs
for U.S. workers and raising billions of dollars in capital.
WHAT NEW TYPES OF PROJECTS
AND TRENDS ARE YOU SEEING
IN THE EB-5 INDUSTRY AFTER THE
NEW REGULATIONS TOOK EFFECT?
Under the new DHS regulations, we are seeing a lot of initial,
“kick-the-tires” inquiries from newcomers, and experienced
project developers seem to be developing smaller projects. As
long as there are lawsuits to suspend the regulations and
congressional legislative reform proposals pending, there will be
some reluctance to jump back fully into the program. One of the
biggest areas of uncertainty in EB-5 fundraising is the concern
about the new TEA rules and the inability to get a definitive
answer out of the USCIS about a project’s TEA eligibility until the
first formal USCIS adjudication on a project is completed.