The Washington Post reported that the Senate gave final approval Tuesday night to a $410 billion spending bill to fund most of the federal government for the remainder of the year, after overcoming a resilient Republican opposition and several Democratic defections. Included within this bill was a further six month extension for the EB-5 regional center pilot program which will now carry through until September 2009. The bill will now be passed through for Presidential signature – so what does this all mean?

If you have already applied for the visa, processing will continue. The consideration of petition applications has now considerably speeded up – this week we have had I-526’s approved for clients who submitted petitions only four months ago! However processing times will depend upon the chosen regional center.

If you are coming up for Consulate interview be aware that we have had feedback that these can be challenging at certain consulates – we do provide feedback to our clients on the experience of previous petitioners.

If you are planning to apply for a visa you may want to do this sooner rather than later as of yet a longer extension to the regional center program has not been granted – reports that a five year extension until 2013 has been granted ARE INCORRECT. There have been attempts to achieve a five year extension but so far these have failed and there are difficult hurdles to overcome, so to get applications through in the current six month timetable you need to act sooner rather than later.

If you are seeking information on the track record of the current programs and the implications:-

Including

• Why American Life has remodelled the size of its latest project?
• What are the likely impacts of the latest cinema reports on the CanAm LA Time Warner film program?
• What has been the experience of applicants on the CMB program?
• What are the likely impacts in the property and recreational markets on the Vermont Jay Peak program?
• What are the results of our research into the program focusing on assisted care provision?

For more information please contact Andrew Bartlett or Stephen Parnell at Which EB5
US: 561 771 1330
UK: 020 3004 9720
Canada:289 470 1464
Ireland: 01 657 1718