WINNERS LISTED ALPHABETICALLY
ROBERT DIVINE
ATTORNEYS IN SPECIALIZED
FIELDS
EB5 INVESTORS
MAGAZINE
R
obert 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 must amend the law to protect all investors from
expiration of the regional center authorization. Congress has
failed to make the regional center law permanent, instead
extending it in increasingly tiny increments of time over the past
CHARLES FOSTER
29 years. Everyone must wait years to get USCIS adjudication,
and investors born in China must wait a decade or more for visa
numbers, which means they must live through numerous
possible expirations of the law. While actual expiration (and
denial of everyone waiting) is unlikely, it is unreasonable for the
United States to attract needed investment without providing
more assurance.
WHAT TRENDS ARE YOU SEEING
WHEN IT COMES TO EB-5 LITIGATION
OR ADVOCACY?
Investors are frustrated with their lack of choice when it comes
to redeployment of their capital when the original project has
repaid the NCE and they wait to finish their immigration
processing. Some have threatened or even brought litigation.
NCE managers should explore providing options for investors
with different emphasis on risk, liquidity, etc. Prospective
investors should evaluate redeployment procedures and
commitments in offering documents.
ATTORNEYS IN SPECIALIZED
FIELDS
EB5 INVESTORS
MAGAZINE
C
harles Foster is the chairman
of the Houston-based Foster
LLP and leads the firm’s EB-5
practice group. For more than 30
years, Foster has represented
multinational businesses in the field of immigration law and has
been board-certified as a specialist in Immigration and
Nationality Law since 1979. Foster has represented individual
EB-5 investors since the program’s inception in 1990, and
regional centers since 1992.
HOW WOULD YOU LIKE TO SEE THE
EB-5 INDUSTRY CHANGE FOR A
BETTER FUTURE?
The EB-5 industry and practice can have a better future only if
Congress increases EB-5 visa numbers directly by adding
substantially more numbers, or indirectly by not counting
dependent family members and recapturing unused numbers
as provided in President Biden's U.S. Citizenship Act of 2021.
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EB5 INVESTORS MAGAZINE
WHAT TRENDS ARE YOU SEEING
WHEN IT COMES TO EB-5 LITIGATION
OR ADVOCACY?
Expanding litigation and advocacy has become even more
important during the pandemic with the ever-increasing
backlogs in the adjudication of I-526 and I-829 petitions, and
given the June 30, 2021 sunset of EB-5 Regional Center program
and need for Congress to extend it for a longer period of time,
and to provide greater investor protection as well.