US Scheme That Grants Green Cards Has Indians Lining Up

About 10,000 high-net-worth residents are seeking to pull $48 billion from China this year, investment migration consultant Henley & Partners estimates, while another 8,000 Indians are looking to leave.

A US visa program that attracted $37 billion in foreign investments since 2008 for projects including New York's Hudson Yards and Trump Bay Street in Jersey City is making a comeback - and the queue of wealthy applicants from China to India is growing.

The revived EB-5 program is poised to fund undertakings from a golf resort in the Utah mountains to condos in rural Florida - while allowing some new overseas investors to cut years-long lines. The controversial initiative, which offers a green card in return for putting large sums toward a US business and creating at least 10 permanent jobs, had a backlog that extended almost a decade before it was suspended in June 2021 when Congress failed to reauthorize it.

A settlement last month of lawsuits involving so-called regional centers that allow foreign investors to pool their funds has put the program back on track for new filings. Earlier this year, the Biden administration signed a law that steps up audits and site visits to deter fraud, while also creating a path for some to skip the backlog of cases if they're willing to invest in rural areas or places with high unemployment. Roughly 100,000 EB-5 visa applicants with some $15 billion in committed investments had been in limbo since the program lapsed, trade group Invest in the USA estimates.

Meanwhile, US law firms are preparing thousands of new applications.