I went to bed early last night and silenced my phone notifications, which turned out to be a good thing, because I woke to a bevy of messages about a draft bill tack-on that is potentially going to be added to the spending bill that needs to be voted on around February 18, 2022. Let’s get into what the draft legislation says and, perhaps more importantly, whether it will actually be passed into law.

Will the bill pass?

This is the key question. I’ve had and am having calls with either senators offices or people who have access to them. Right now, people are saying 50/50. Personally, I think that sounds low and that number will rise steadily if -and this is the key part - it becomes likely that a comprehensive spending bill will pass on or shortly after February 18.

Why would a bill not pass February 18?

If there’s no compromise with certain key players in the Senate, you could just see another Continuing Resolution to fund the government through the end of the fiscal year (meaning no tack-on legislation like RC reauthorization).

What does the bill say?

The investment amount is going up. We always knew that was coming. Now the parameters are set. $700,000 for a TEA project, $850,000 for a non-TEA.
TEA definition tweaked, for both urban and rural. This was expected and the current compromise legislation probably resolves this more favorably for the industry than we were expecting.
Rural TEA’s boosted. 20% of visas will be set aside only for projects in rural areas. This is massive for rural projects. Of course, to hit the quota, we’d need more investments and have something done to alleviate the China backlog, but now is not time for that - perfect is the enemy of good.
Structural changes on issues like redeployment and program integrity. These do not immediately impact investors or projects so we will not worry about those here.
Priority given to public works projects. LOL. No government or PPP is gonna want to deal with the administrative hurdles that go into developing an EB-5 project when they can issue bonds at sub-4%. It makes no economic sense whatsoever, but if this gets another senator’s vote on the matter, sure, go for it man.

Who could mess this up?

The EB-5 lobbying groups that spend the most time in public and try to present themselves as the face of the industry have an absolutely abysmal track record - the current lapse of the regional center program being the biggest example, but it goes back a decade and they are simply not effective surrogates for the people developing projects. They fouled up the last reauthorization. During the lapsed period, several groups have put out statements showing that - somehow, still - they just don’t “get it” with respect to what’s going to be needed to get any reauthorization. So based on their past track record, there’s obviously still time for them to screw this all up for the rest of us.

I want to invest at the $500,000 level, when do I need to do it by?

No one knows for sure, but obviously the most conservative route to guarantee you’ll be fine at that level would be to have your I-526 received by USCIS by mid-month. Any passed legislation will be signed into law by the President and take effect quickly. USCIS may request time to put out guidance on a new law and hold acceptance of I-526’s based on the new law aside for a certain period of time, but that will not extend the $500,000 TEA-based investment currently available via the direct route.