Senator Leahy’s Amendment 2 to the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Bill, S. 744 provides that, at the I-829 stage, there is a presumption that 10 indirect jobs have been created per investor if the I-829 petition evidence demonstrates that the investor’s money has been spent in the regional center’s project.  This is significantly different than the current rule that requires the investor demonstrate through documentary evidence that the underlying facts and milestones in the economic report have been met.

Senator Grassley has introduced an amendment to Senator Leahy’s Amendment 2, to strike the special rule for alien investors in a regional center that exempt them from meeting the job creation requirement at the I-829 stage set forth in section 203(b)(5)(A)(ii) of the Immigration and Nationality Act. The result, we believe, would be to strike the I-829 job creation presumption in the Leahy Amendment 2 and have the language revert back to the current law, which requires investors at the I-829 stage to show that they have created 10 indirect or direct jobs.  Senator Grassley’s amendment also would authorize U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to require regional centers to participate in the Employment Verification System (E-Verify) and authorize the Fraud Detection and Nationality Security Directorate (FDNS) to conduct random site visits and compliance audits of regional centers.

Senator Leahy’s Amendment 2 will provide much needed flexibility to the regional center program’s job creation requirements. However, the proposed amendment is likely to have an opposite effect. The Amendments will be going to vote on Thursday. Regional centers and investors, who would like to voice an opinion, can contact the members of the Senate Judiciary Committee prior to the vote.

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Photo of Kate Kalmykov Kate Kalmykov

Kate Kalmykov Co-Chairs the Immigration & Compliance Practice. She focuses her practice on business immigration and compliance. She represents clients in a wide-range of employment based immigrant and non-immigrant visa matters including students, trainees, professionals, managers and executives, artists and entertainers, treaty investors

Kate Kalmykov Co-Chairs the Immigration & Compliance Practice. She focuses her practice on business immigration and compliance. She represents clients in a wide-range of employment based immigrant and non-immigrant visa matters including students, trainees, professionals, managers and executives, artists and entertainers, treaty investors and traders, persons of extraordinary ability and immigrant investors.

Kate has deep experience working on EB-5 immigrant investor matters. She regularly works with developers across a variety of industries, as well as private equity funds on developing new projects that qualify for EB-5 investments. This includes creation of new Regional Centers, having projects adopted by existing Regional Centers or through pooled individual EB-5 petitions. For existing Regional Centers, Kate regularly helps to prepare amendment filings, file exemplar petitions, address removal of conditions issues and ensure that they develop an internal program for ongoing compliance with applicable immigration regulations and guidance. She also counsels foreign nationals on obtaining greencards through either individual or Regional Center EB-5 investments, as well as issues related to I-829 Removal of Conditions.

Kate also works with various human resources departments on I-9 employment verification matters as well as H-1B and LCA compliance. She regularly counsels employers on due diligence issues including internal audits and reviews, as well as minimization of exposure and liabilities in government investigations.