Courtney Creedon: When did you first hear about the
EB-5 program?
Kim Zeuli: I heard about EB-5 about five years ago and
ICIC really started to get involved with it about two years ago
because we were engaged by some foundations to explore its
applications for the inner city.
CC: When you first started exploring EB-5 as an organization,
was the point to eventually publish a research report?
KZ: When we first started to look at it as an organization,
we were interested in how it might be utilized in the inner
city. Then when we were engaged by the foundations it was to
produce a white paper or research report that would also serve
as a framing document for a convening.
CC: What were your goals in this report? What did you hope
to accomplish?
KZ: We wanted to know how EB-5 was being utilized in the
inner city. One hypothesis we were testing was that, anecdotally
we were hearing that EB-5 was under-utilized, so we wanted to
explore that question. We also wanted just to learn more about
the mechanics of it and any barriers to its adoption.
CC: In your report you mention the lack of available data,
and that is something that our publication has confronted
as well. What sort of sources did you use in your research?
KZ: We used all publicly available data on EB-5, which is not
much, and then we contacted regional centers. We reviewed
their online resources and interviewed many of them. We also
interviewed other EB-5 professionals