California EB-5 Visa Foreign Investor Program Update: Today 2pm PST
There will be a briefing call today from The California Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development to discuss their policy on the EB-5 Program and recent changes made to the way they designate Targeted Employment Area's (TEAs). Here is more information:
Briefing Call – EB-5 Foreign Investor Program and Policy Update
When: Tuesday, June 19th @ 2:00 PM
Call-In Number: (888) 324-9652
Participant Passcode: 7184605
Questions: For any questions, please email GO-Biz at EB5info@gov.ca.gov
Please join the California Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development (GO-Biz) for a conference call to discuss updates to the EB-5 Foreign Investor Program. The state portion of the program is being formally transferred from the Business, Transportation & Housing Agency to GO-Biz and our office will implement policy changes to make the program more efficient and consistent.
California's move to restrict TEA designations has caused concern among the California EB-5 Regional Centers and service providers, in particular Catherine DeBono Holmes attorney with Jeffer, Mangels, Butler & Mitchell who writes the following:
"We have been asking people who have an interest in projects that require TEA designation in California to let the Governor's Office know how important it is to have the TEA designation status in order for them to successfully raise EB-5 financing.
Our goal is to make California a competitive place for EB-5 projects. We believe that the Governor's Office will make some changes in their policy to expand TEA designations in California, but we don't yet know whether they will go beyond granting TEA status to projects located in census tracts that would qualify individually as high unemployment areas. We hope that they will go further and allow some reasonable census tract aggregation, but we need to show more support for this from project owners and regional centers."
She and Victor Shum have written two excellent articles on the subject which you can find here California's new TEA approach will discourage EB-5 investment in California and here EB-5 Lawyer Alert #2: Update on California TEA designation procedure.
For those interested in hearing what the State with the largest number of EB5 Visa Regional Centers has to say about the recent changes made to the way they designate TEAs this call should provide valuable information.