Kilili: USCIS will consider past investments of E-2C investors

With a little over a month before the expiration of the E2-C program in the Commonwealth, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has given foreign investors holding transitional visa status some hope after finally clarifying that past investments will be considered if they choose to apply for an EB-5 visa, which has a $500,000 threshold for areas like the CNMI.

In a Nov. 10 letter to Delegate Gregorio Kilili C. Sablan (Ind-MP), USCIS Director Leon Rodriguez wrote, “Neither the governing statute nor the regulations prohibit consideration of a past investment in a new commercial enterprise, provided that such investment was made after Nov. 29, 1990.”

The USCIS director added: “Any field Form 1-526, Immigrant Petition by Alien Entrepreneur, would need to be adjudicated based upon its specific facts to determine if the petitioner meets all EB-5 eligibility requirements.”

Sablan said this gives E-2C investors another option when their visa category expires at the end of the year.

“Finally we got confirmation in writing from USCIS that E-2C investors could actually apply for EB-5 status and they could use past investment starting Nov. 29, 1990. The threshold is $500,000. There are people here that claim to have invested $500,000. They obviously have to prove that they’ve made that investment.”

Sablan said there are a total of 261 E-2C investors in the Commonwealth and some of them have invested in the hundreds of thousands.

“They don’t have to go to the regional center and they can apply directly and in two years they can qualify and apply for green card. Some people said they invested $500,000 and some said they invested over a million dollars and the situation here is they have to document that investment. I don’t doubt for a minute that some people have actually met and overcome the threshold. It’s now a matter of putting it all together,” he said.

Saipan Tribune earlier reported that many of those with E-2C investor status and visas own and operate small hotels, laundry facilities, automotive shops, car rentals, grocery stores, and a host of other small businesses in the CNMI.

They are investors who, along with their spouses and children, were allowed to remain in the CNMI under E-2C status even with a minimum investment of $50,000, instead of $150,000—but that would only be allowed until the end of this year.

Last September, USCIS issued an advisory reminding the public that the E-2C immigration category will expire on Dec. 31, 2014.

It said unless Congress takes legislative action to extend it, the E-2 CNMI investor status and visa would expire on the last day of 2014.

USCIS said the U.S. government’s administrative agencies do not have the authority to extend the E-2C program without legislative action from Congress.

It pointed out that the U.S. Labor secretary’s extension of the CNMI-only transitional worker or CW program in June 2014 did “not” apply to the E-2C program.

To remain lawfully in the CNMI after 2014, all individuals with E-2C nonimmigrant status must obtain another lawful immigrant or nonimmigrant status under U.S. immigration law “no later than” Dec. 31, 2014. E-2C non-immigrants are also not eligible for parole in the CNMI, USCIS said.

USCIS pointed out that anyone who has had a non-immigrant status is not eligible to apply for or receive parole in the CNMI, regardless whether or not the nonimmigrant status has expired.

U.S. Congress created the EB-5 program in 1990 to stimulate the U.S. economy through job creation and capital investment by foreign investors.

The minimum qualifying investment in the U.S. is $1 million, but in high unemployment areas or rural areas in the U.S., the minimum qualifying investment is $500,000. The investor has to create or preserve at least 10 full-time jobs for qualifying U.S. workers within two years of the immigrant investor’s admission to the U.S. as a conditional permanent resident.