8 U.S.C. 1153(b)(5)

What it decides

The RIA rewrote this paragraph on 15 March 2022, and where the statute and 8 CFR 204.6 conflict the statute wins. The regulation is not dead. The statute nowhere defines full-time employment, so the 35 hours per week test, the rule that a job-sharing arrangement counts as one full-time position, and the rule that combinations of part-time positions never count still come from 8 CFR 204.6(e). RIA deleted the old statutory definition of full-time employment when section 102(a)(4) rewrote (D). (A) caps EB-5 at 7.1 percent of the worldwide employment-based level, requires capital expected to remain invested for not less than 2 years, and requires full-time employment for not fewer than 10 qualifying workers, who may not be the investor, the spouse, or their sons or daughters. (B) reserves 20 percent of the visas for rural investment, 10 percent for a designated high unemployment area and 2 percent for infrastructure projects. Unused reserved visas carry over one fiscal year within the same category, then fall to the unreserved pool. (C) sets $1,050,000, or $800,000 for an investment in a targeted employment area or in an infrastructure project. Both figures adjust for inflation on 1 January 2027 and every 5 years after, measured from 1 January 2022 and rounded down to the nearest $50,000, with the lower figure fixed at 75 percent of the standard one. (D) defines capital, new commercial enterprise, job-creating entity, affiliated job-creating entity, infrastructure project, rural area and targeted employment area. (E) makes regional center visas available through 30 September 2027 and, at (E)(iv), lets indirect jobs satisfy only up to 90 percent of the ten, falling to 75 percent where the jobs come from construction activity lasting less than 2 years. (F) through (K) carry the integrity provisions: the project business plan a regional center must file before an investor petitions, annual statements, bona fides of the people involved, securities compliance, the EB-5 Integrity Fund and promoter registration. (L) requires tax returns filed during the past 7 years and certified copies of any monetary judgments, with no time limit on the judgments. (M) keeps a good faith investor eligible for 180 days after a regional center, new commercial enterprise or job-creating entity is terminated or debarred. (S), headed Protection from expired legislation, requires continued processing of regional center petitions filed on or before 30 September 2026 and forbids denying them because the authorization lapsed.

Governed by 8 U.S.C. 1153(b)(5), as amended by Public Law 117-103, Division BB, 15 March 2022, 136 Stat. 1070 (https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCODE-2024-title8/html/USCODE-2024-title8-chap12-subchapI-partI-sec1153.htm). Full-time employment, job sharing and part-time combinations: 8 CFR 204.6(e).