“What is the Immigrant Investor (EB-5) Program all about?” We are being asked this question more and more often by fellow attorneys. Our colleagues generally want to know how they can help foreign investors successfully petition for an EB-5 visa and how they can help American businesses qualify for EB-5 investments.

The first step in answering this question is always to dispel the myth that getting an EB-5 visa is simply a matter of writing a check. The reality is that an EB-5 petition can be an arduous process and, for some petitioners, coming up with a $1,000,000 investment (or $500,000 for investing within a Targeted Employment Area (TEA), where unemployment is at least 150 percent of the national average) is the easy part. The hard part is proving that the investment funds were “lawfully acquired.”

An EB-5 petitioner must provide sufficient documentary evidence to allow the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) to trace all of the investment capital back to a lawful source (or sources). Under 8CFR§204.6(j)(3), the USCIS may require any, or all, of the following documents to prove that this investment capital was lawfully obtained: foreign business registration records, tax returns filed within five years, evidence identifying any other source of capital, documentation of court judgments, or pending court cases. And these “regulatory” requirements are just the starting point.