The Senate is controlled by the Republicans and Senator Chuck Grassley, R-IA, is not one of the prime proponents of EB-5, which has come under much more scrutiny. He chairs the Judiciary Committee that oversees Homeland Security and the EB-5 Program.

However, based on what I hear at the conferences that I attend for Investment in the United States events, it is expected that the program will be renewed and the likelihood is there will be no change. Typically the renewal is three years, but there is a possible the renewal could be a short period of time to allow Congress to rethink and analyze the problem and come up with a more permanent solution. A short-term renewal would be viewed as a negative in the marketplace and create further uncertainty.

GlobeSt.com: What kind of changes is needed to make the EB-5 program more effective?

Fieldstone: The program needs to be revamped to increase the visa count since the original contemplation of the EB-5 Program was 10,000 investors. Right now, the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, or USCIS, is interpreting this to mean 10,000 visas, instead of 10,000 investor petitioners, which include their family.

So with the average family applying under one petition being about two and a half to three people, this reduces the actual number of petitioners to around 3,500 per year. The industry is strongly lobbying to increase this visa count to 10,000 petitioners, which would increase the visas to almost 30,000.

GlobeSt.om: What role does EB-5 financing play in the growth of our real estate market when it comes to new development? ?

Fieldstone: EB-5 financing has now become mainstream in the real estate industry and has been responsible for the financing of some significant projects around the country. This includes Hudson Yards and Atlantic Yards in New York City among other major projects.

It also includes numerous high-end mixed-use and commercial projects primarily in New York, California, Florida, Texas, and Nevada. EB-5 capital typically provides a mezzanine-type financing for large projects that enable the overall financing costs to be lowered and make the project development more affordable. It is noteworthy that national companies are now using EB-5 and actually absorbing a majority of the EB-5 capital given the size of the projects that are developing.