Friday, December 25, 2009

Job Creation

During an EB-5 stakeholders call, I heard an employee of USCIS say that jobs created outside a Regional Center's geographic area do not count (i.e., the jobs cannot be counted toward the 10 jobs that each investor must create, directly, indirectly, or induced, within a Regional Center).
This is astounding! How on Earth could anyone make such a statement with a straight face? If my Regional Center encompasses an area next to a county not within the geographic confines of my Regional Center, and it creates a job there, the job doesn't count? Give me a break!
We are working on some investment projects that are national in scope and create indirect and induced jobs all over the United States.
USCIS had better think through this quickly. Thousands of American jobs are riding on its interpretation of "job creation" within Regional Centers. And, as we all know -- and certainly USCIS should know -- the U.S. economy is not a pretty picture.