EB-5 Regional Center Pilot Program Extension
Floor Speech
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Ms. ZOE LOFGREN of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Today, we move to extend an immigration program proven to promote investment and to create jobs for American workers. H.R. 5569 would extend the EB-5 regional center pilot program for 5 years. Unless Congress acts, the regional center pilot program will sunset on September 30 of this year.
Congress created the fifth employment-based preference, known as EB-5, immigrant visa category in 1990 for immigrant investors. To qualify for a green card, the investor must prove that the investment is in a commercial enterprise that will benefit the United States economy and create at least 10 full-time jobs.
In general, investors must invest at least $1 million. However, that amount can be reduced to $500,000 if the investment is made in a rural or high unemployment area.
Approximately 10,000 visas have been made available in the EB-5 green card category each year. But the category has been underutilized ever since it came into being.
To help further encourage this program, Congress created a temporary pilot program in 1993. The regional center pilot program allocates 3,000 visas each year, out of the 10,000 available, for EB-5 investors who invest in so-called designated regional centers.
Under the immigrant investor pilot program, an applicant seeking EB-5 status must make the qualifying investment within an approved regional center. The requirement to create at least 10 new jobs, however, can be met by showing that, as a result of the new enterprise, such jobs will be created either directly or indirectly.
The regional center program is vital for our economy. For example, in fiscal year 2007, a total of 806 investors and family members immigrated to the United States in the EB-5 category.
That is not very many people, but even at that level, the EB-5 immigrant investor program is expected this year to generate an annual rate of $1 billion in aggregate immigrant investment, creating more than 20,000 new direct and indirect jobs. Usage of the program is expanding as new regional centers get approved.
The regional center program helps get investment money to some of the Nation's poorest communities, creating jobs and revitalizing communities. In Vermont's poorest county, for example, a regional center investment has put $17.5 million into a ski resort at Jay Peak. This project is expected to create close to 2,000 jobs in the area, according to the New York Times.
It is important that Congress reauthorize the EB-5 regional center program. The pilot program has been renewed several times, and is currently due to expire, as I said earlier, on September 30 of this year. This bill would extend the EB-5 regional center pilot program for 5 years, until September 30, 2013.
When the subcommittee reviewed this bill, we had a discussion about looking at the level of investment and also the possibility of including venture capital-driven investments, where it's really the patents and ideas that are creating the jobs. We hope to be able to work with the minority to further pursue those ideas at a subsequent date. It should not deter us from proceeding today with this program that has proven to be valuable to our Nation by creating jobs for Americans.
I reserve the balance of my time.
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Ms. ZOE LOFGREN of California. Mr. Speaker, I'm sure that we will pass this bill. We have broad bipartisan support for it. But one of the values of debating these bills is not just to enact law but to let the public know of opportunities that the law provides to them.
And it might be instructive to citizens who are observing our proceedings to know that these projects that are being investment-driven through this program are in rural, as well as urban, communities. The regional center staff--actually, it seems to me this pilot project has proven--make this thing work.
And so there are areas in the country today that are having economic problems. I would encourage those areas, through their local governments, to look very carefully at whether they may want to utilize this program as one piece of putting their economy on the road to recovery.
I note that our colleague Sheila Jackson-Lee expressed her interest in making sure that urban disadvantaged areas be looked at, and I note that Houston, Texas, has actually one of the largest applications of all. It is expected that they will have 7,000 jobs and a $350 million investment.
So this is a great opportunity for America. I would hope that we will pass this expeditiously. It is part of getting our economy on the move again.
I would reserve the balance of my time.
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Ms. ZOE LOFGREN of California. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate that we will likely have an extended debate next year when we visit again the issue of comprehensive immigration reform. I don't
want to get into a debate today, I will just say a core principle of immigration law has always been that the United States Government doesn't tell American citizens who they get to fall in love with and marry. And a second core principle is, when our U.S. citizen marries somebody from another country, the American doesn't have to move to France, his wife gets to move here. So that's something that we will protect as this debate goes forward.
This bill has bipartisan support, and I urge its adoption.
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