A rule raising the investment threshold for participants of the EB-5 visa program was overturned by a federal judge:
Those rules, issued by the Department of Homeland Security in 2019, raised the minimum investment amount to apply for what are known as EB-5 visas to $900,000 from $500,000, and made it harder for developments in places such as Midtown Manhattan to qualify. Foreigners can get green cards by investing in U.S. real-estate projects and other businesses that create jobs.
…U.S. Magistrate Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley of the Northern District of California ruled late Tuesday that the Trump administration improperly issued the rules because the acting Homeland Security secretary at the time, Kevin McAleenan, had been improperly appointed to his role.
The rule was one of Obama’s midnight regulations. Biden supports it, as Trump did before him, and since it was overturned on procedural grounds, there’s every reason to suspect it will be reintroduced.
This would be a mistake. As we explained when this issue was initially fought, EB-5 is a merit-based program that allows the U.S. to compete for mobile investment. Of all immigration programs, it ought to be among the most easily justifiable and least controversial.
Unfortunately, parochial politics has prevented Congress from overcoming an urban and rural divide to reform and secure the program’s future. Still, the legislature is the proper avenue for modifying EB-5, and therefore the Biden administration should not attempt to reissue the overturned rule.
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