According to our sources in Washington we are on our way to the anticipated 3-year extension to the EB-5 pilot program. Here is what we know right now:

House and Senate conferees today reached agreement on how to resolve the differing provisions in the House-passed and Senate-passed versions of the fiscal year 2010 Homeland Security Appropriations bill. Conferees included a three year-long extension of the E-Verify Program in the measure, and they included three year extensions of three expiring immigration visa programs (including EB-5).  Today’s conference committee action readies the measure for consideration by the full House and full Senate. The text of the conference agreement was not available at the time of this writing.

Here is an extract from FY2010 CONFERENCE SUMMARY: HOMELAND SECURITY APPROPRIATIONS.

“Visa Extensions: Provides three year authorization extensions for the religious worker (R visa), rural-serving doctors (Conrad 30-J visa), and investor (EB-5 visa) programs”.

The final three-year compromise emerged after a very contentions internal debate and a nearly successful effort by some members of Congress to eliminate all immigration extenders from the bill. Communications from the EB-5 regional centers to their individual members of Congress and from the entire EB-5 stakeholder community to congressional leadership were an extremely important factor in the decision to include the extensions.

The conference version of the bill will now go to the House and Senate for final votes in the next few days and then to President Obama for signature.  The final votes are expected to be a formality.

We will keep you informed of all developments of the EB-5 pilot program here at the Which EB5 Blog.