Before You Wire the Money: The EB-5 Conversation You Need to Have | Episode 236 with Sam Hussain
Global instability does not wait for anybody! With conflict in the Middle East altering international markets, individuals worldwide are rushing to secure a Plan B for themselves and their families. The U.S. EB-5 Immigrant Investor Program is a top choice. Sam Hussain from BLS Global joins our hosts Mona and Rebecca to ask the burning EB-5 questions his clients keep coming back to, and the answers may just surprise you.
Can you still file if your project is already built? And as the September 30th grandfathering deadline approaches swiftly, waiting until summer may already be a costly mistake. We unpack the issues investors must understand before filing, such as source of funds challenges, partial investment strategies, and rural versus TEA considerations.
Are you considering EB-5? This episode is a masterclass in what sophisticated investors should know before they consider wiring a single dollar.
Sam Hussain
Sam Hussain serves as the director of British publishing house BLS Global, the premiere educational platform for individuals and families pursuing global citizenship. Founded in 2010, BLS Global are recognized leaders in the field of investment immigration, Foreign Direct Investment and organize leading Global Investment Immigration Summits, headquartered in central London with offices in Asia, Middle East and Africa. They are worldwide pioneers in organizing events within emerging investment immigration markets and engaging high-net-worth and ultra-high-net-worth individuals through their investment portfolio CBI Global. They work closely with governments and intermediaries with investor programs that have raised more than USD 200 billion in direct investment.
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Transcript
This transcript was produced using AI and subsequently edited for style and clarity. The edits do not alter the substance of the speaker’s remarks
Mona Shah
(0:59) Hey Rebecca, what a tumultuous time it is in this industry right now.
Rebecca Singh
Oh, I know, it’s so much going on. I think the Middle East, I mean, first we started with Russia, Ukraine, now we’re in the Middle East.
(1:09) what’s going on?
Mona Shah
(1:12) Well, Sam from BLS Global is back. And before we really get into EB-5, we did want to hear from him directly. We really want to know what running a global investment and mobility business is like right now.
Sam Hussain
(1:23) Hi, Mona. Hi, Rebecca. Absolutely busy.
(1:27) This Q1 of 2026 being the busiest, I think, since the last 10 years.
Mona Shah
(1:34) Oh, wow.
Sam Hussain
(1:36) Crazy period. So much is happening at the moment.
Mona Shah
(1:39) Well, we’re only a week or, what is it, two weeks into the war, a week and a half into the war. Has that shaped what clients are asking for? Are you seeing anything?
Sam Hussain
(1:49) Absolutely. We’re seeing a significant uptake, especially from Middle East, Europe, Latin America, India, everyone’s that’s been looking at residency and citizenship programmes for 2026. Really, really with this war, it’s accelerated enquiries and people are actually making more decisions than ever before.
(2:09) So definitely, it’s again, after what’s happened with Ukraine, a lot of Russians went into places like Middle East, got a lot of second citizenship, same thing happening again. Yes.
Rebecca Singh
(2:19) Yeah. Where are you seeing all these investors looking for the or citizenship by investment programmes? Where are they going?
Sam Hussain
(2:27) That’s a very good question. So it’s always US for some reason. I don’t know.
(2:33) There’s always an appetite for the US, especially from India, Middle East and the UK. And to be honest, there’s a lot of immigrants in the UK that are also doing second passports. There’s various, even Turkey, there’s always a demand.
(2:46) So from the jurisdictions we cover, I would say Middle East, Europe, Latin America and India, there’s still a big demand from those jurisdictions.
Mona Shah
(2:55) Very interesting. There’s just so much variety in the US. I suppose there’s something for everyone.
Rebecca Singh
(3:02) Yeah, but did you guys think that with the war that has started, has it deterred anyone from coming into the US?
Mona Shah
(3:08) Yeah, like anti-American sentiment? Sam, are you seeing that?
Sam Hussain
(3:12) You do have people that are in favour of the current government, you do get people that are very upset, but they know with America, there’s always a new government administration after four years. So they would just pause their plan. So if they’re set on going to the US, they will definitely go to the US in some kind of capacity, but they will just pause their plan, but there’s still a demand and an appetite for the US.
Mona Shah
(3:35) Yeah, well, I suppose that’s good.
Sam Hussain
(3:39) And keep you guys busy, I guess. Right.
Mona Shah
(3:44) Well, I know you’ve been speaking with lots of perspective for EB-5 investors, because you keep bombarding us with questions.
Sam Hussain
(3:50) Oh, gosh, the amount of questions that we get from investors. I have to send you guys messages after messages.
Mona Shah
(3:58) Well, we thought we’d do something different today. Instead of us asking you questions, we thought we can turn the tables.
Sam Hussain
(4:06) You are doing me a massive favour, and it’s very good for the mass audience, because a lot of the times it’s similar questions, but some of these questions are so creative, and they’re beyond my capacity. So, we do need an expert.
Rebecca Singh
(4:20) I agree. After 15 years, I mean, some of the questions you ask us, I’m like, that’s new. Yeah.
Mona Shah
(4:26) Actually, I have to say, I am impressed with some of the latest investors. They really are reading the PPM, and they’re coming up, they’re reading the boilerplate stuff, and they’re asking questions, Rebecca. I mean, it’s like…
Rebecca Singh
(4:37) So we have sophisticated investors, and that’s what they should be, sophisticated investors coming in under the EB-5 programme.
Sam Hussain
(4:43) A lot of them are getting access to a lot of these online platforms, right? Like chat, GBT, they’re uploading these PPMs, and it’s educating them, but it still doesn’t give them the final solution, because we’ve been through the process, right? In terms of successful projects, completions, and you’ve seen, you’ve gone through this case study.
(5:01) So whatever happens, you go through these PPMs, you still need the experts to go through them.
Mona Shah
(5:07) Absolutely. And Sam, I cannot tell you how many times one of our clients has come back and said, hey, Claude said this. And I said, well, Claude is wrong.
(5:14) I’m sorry, but Claude is wrong there.
Rebecca Singh
Picks up a lot of misinformation.
Mona Shah
All right, go ahead, fire away.
Sam Hussain
(5:20) No, I need to fire away, because this is like, it’s really good for the listeners. And so they can, when they ask me the questions, they’re going to actually hear it from the experts. So one of the major questions I get from investors are, if a project is fully built and operational, can my EB-5 petition still be accepted?
Mona Shah
(5:39) Good question.
Mona Shah
(5:40) Well, it’s not an automatic no.
Rebecca Singh
Yeah, the details matter, right, Mona? I mean, the project documents.
Mona shah
(5:47) Yeah. Do the project documents allow it? Is there a temporary or there’s a final CO?
Mona Shah
(5:52) What’s a CO again, Rebecca?
Rebecca Singh
Yep. So that’s a certificate of occupancy.
(5:57) So temporary means that they’re pretty much finished building. Sometimes they may host, if it’s a hotel, for instance, they might have some customers that are in, and maybe there’s parts of the hotel that need finishing, maybe like the stores underneath. But the final, final is that it’s fully, fully operational.
Sam Hussain
(6:14) But in their mind, they’re thinking my EB-5 is used to complete a project. Isn’t that what EB-5 is there for?
Mona Shah
(6:21) Again, if the projects allow it, if the right sort of wording is in the project, then yes, you can use it even after the project has been completed. But it’s not the same for every project. Yeah, go ahead.
Rebecca Singh
(6:34) Yeah, because it’s really important to show how are the funds being used?
Mona Shah
(6:37) Yeah.
Rebecca Singh
(6:37) So you can’t just accept the funds and then it’s just sitting in the NC account or the JC account. You have to, from the JC account, how’s it being expended?
(6:45) Is it being expended on job creating expenditures? So I think that’s going to be the important part in looking at a project and seeing, okay, even though they’re built operational, what other costs are there to this project?
Mona Shah
(6:59) And the interesting thing here, Sam, is that as people find out with 526 might get approved, it’s the 829 where there may be an issue.
Rebecca Singh
(7:07) Yes.
Mona Shah
(7:07) Because at that point, when you’re looking at the expenditures, you’re looking and you’re seeing, wait a minute, what is this? And USCIS does this all the time. They will go through line by line, item by item.
(7:19) They will say, no, this is not included, that is not included. And if they start disallowing a number of areas, then guess what? Somebody doesn’t get enough jobs and they don’t get their final green card.
(7:32) Yep.
Rebecca Singh
(7:32) So those final investors will have to pay attention.
Sam Hussain
(7:35) USCIS does audit after a project’s been completed. So, they do more checks, do they? Rigorous checks?
Rebecca Singh
(7:41) So they can go and do site visits and they should be rather than giving us RFEs or annoyed saying that they’ve looked on Google. So yes, they do. They do take a look into the project, see where they are.
(7:56) But a lot of times they come up with the fact that the project isn’t even started. That’s where we get a lot of issues of what stage the project is in.
Mona Shah
(8:03) Yeah. But you’re talking about the audit, how the money is spent. Yeah.
(8:07) They do that, of course. Now it’s mandatory for there to be every regional centre to be audited. We don’t know when and where.
(8:15) You could just be a random regional centre and it’s just brought up, but all regional centres will be audited. And that’s under the new law, under the EB-5 Reform and Integrity Act. That wasn’t there before.
(8:26) That’s new.
Sam Hussain
(8:27) Now that’s good. So I want to move on to another question. I know you guys can keep on going on.
Sam Hussain
(8:32) Okay.
(8:34) And I really need your help because all the time I speak to the investors, they think they can do their source of funds. Yes, I’m doing EP5. I’m preparing my source of funds.
Mona Shah
(8:43) Yeah, chat GPT is helping them.
Sam Hussain
(8:45) I’m like, okay, your definition of preparation of source of fund is completely heard and seen. And they think, okay, I have till September. Why am I being rushed to retain an attorney?
(8:58) Please, please help me with this because they don’t understand the importance and why it’s so important to retain an attorney now, especially for their source of funds.
Mona Shah
(9:07) Well, actually, I think we can divide this into two. First of all, we can divide it into India and Chinese born investors, and then perhaps the rest of the world. Rebecca, why don’t you take the first part?
Rebecca Singh
(9:19) Yeah. So, it’s important for Indian Chinese investors, just because there is an imminent backlog approaching.
Mona Shah
(9:27) Haven’t we been talking about this for months?
Rebecca Singh
(9:31) We are in March of 2026. It’s got to be coming. The visa bulletin has not arrived.
(9:37) So I’m not sure by the time this is out where we’ll be stand, but I think you have to prepare. Indian and Chinese investors, remember, it’s based on country of birth, have to prepare now, get this in, especially if you’re in the US. If you want to follow your adjustment of status concurrently, this is the opportunity to get it done.
Mona Shah
(9:56) So what you’re saying is that the current slow, and I mean slow adjudication of cases is giving a false impression? Yes. I’ll tell you, Sam, right now, our bet, and again, this is just us guessing, our bet is that rural is going to go into backlog before TEA, by the way.
(10:17) Yeah. Because, and it’s not because of the numbers. It’s because that it’s only rural, which seems to be getting into any adjudications right now.
Rebecca Singh
(10:27) Yeah. Well, I mean, that’s another topic we’ll get into in a bit. But I think the issue is, because there was such a huge backlog pre-RIA, that Indian and Chinese investors were so nervous at rural because it was priority processing, and it had 20% of the visa count versus high unemployment or TEA areas where they had 10%, everyone went after those visas.
Mona Shah
(10:51) Yeah. So basically, they’re all in one area. So, there’s going to be issues coming up.
(10:56) Actually, it’s interesting. It may just be that non-TEA ends up being faster, but that’s for a future topic. Going away from Indian and Chinese-born investors, Rebecca, the rest of the world, you know, yeah, I can imagine somebody who’s born in Turkey or something saying, why do I have to rush now?
(11:14) But I think, you know, Sam, September is closer than it looks.
Rebecca Singh
(11:19) And for those who don’t know why we keep talking about September of 2026, even though the programme is expiring in 2027, there is a part in the regulation or in the act, the RIA 2022, that stated that they were only going to grandfather petitions if they were filed prior to September 30th of 2026.
Mona Shah
(11:39) Yeah. Nobody understands why we have a whole year of nothing. And it could possibly be that shifts, that changes.
(11:45) But at this point, that’s what’s in the law. It’s crazy to think about it, but we don’t understand why they did that. And what does grandfathering mean?
(11:54) It could mean that the higher amount would be later. Nobody really understands because that part needs to be clarified, that section.
Rebecca Singh
(12:01) And then just going back to what you said, Sam, like Mona said, September is closer than we think. And it does take time to, like you said, transfer funds, review your, it is a lot of in-depth reviewing of your statements and going back and forth. So, it does take time.
(12:18) So I think all investors, if you’re ready or thinking about it, it’s, I think it’s the time now.
Mona Shah
(12:24) Yeah, we can give you an example. We had somebody who was ready to file last October, and we are in March and they wanted to refinance and they wanted to take money from a business and then from a loan. None of them were working out and it’s taken months to be able to just finalise the source.
Sam Hussain
(12:40) No, that’s true. And everyone thinks like, oh, I’ll just send everything over to the attorney in September. They will file.
(12:46) There’s so much work that goes in.
Rebecca Singh
(12:48) Please don’t. Please do not do that.
Sam Hussain
(12:51) Yeah.
Mona Shah
(12:52) Yeah. It’s, it’s going to be a very costly mistake if you leave this to the very end and then we’re rushing. And then we, we’ve experienced all the mistakes of rush filings and believe you me, there’s lots of them.
(13:05) And unfortunately there are less experienced attorneys out there because the new, some of the newer attorneys who are out haven’t experienced what’s happened previously. And there are mistakes being made.
Sam Hussain
(13:16) No, exactly. So, if you think about it, we’re already in March, we’ve got this turmoil with everything’s going on, then it’s going to be April. Sooner or later, you realise it’s the holiday period.
(13:25) People start putting their feet up, going on holiday, June, July, September. So, I don’t, I keep on telling them, you know, whatever you need, you need your source of funds. It’s got to be strong.
(13:39) And then you’re in a much better position to, you know, choose the right project. So, I want to move on to another question. You know, a lot of people think, well, hold on, I’m in the U S I’ve already spent nearly a million dollars or 800,000.
(13:52) How can I not use that money to make it into an EB-5? And can I not just use that money for EB-5 or what can, what can be done? Because they’ve, you know, they’ve spent nearly a million or 800,000.
(14:03) They just feel, what should I do?
Mona Shah
(14:06) Well, again, there’s, this is a yes and a no answer. And there’s a lot of misconceptions in this area, but first of all, it depends. What have they spent it on?
(14:14) If you’ve bought a house for a million or 800,000, then, you know, that’s not going to create any jobs.
(14:20) So you have to remember it’s a job creating programme.
Rebecca Singh
Yeah. Well, we get this, Sam, a lot with E2 investors in the U S already.
(14:28) Yeah. And they will say, well, I can easily convert this into EB-5. And no, because a lot of times, you know, they might transfer funds abroad.
(14:36) It might be coming from another business account that, that will not work for USCIS unless it’s a sole proprietorship. So, you’re running into questions about how the money’s being transferred. Can you source enough?
(14:47) Can you go far back and get bank statements? So, it’s a lot to think about just on the job creation expenditures on the project, but how did you actually bring that cash in, in the first place?
Mona Shah
(14:58) Right. But there have been many E2s that we have successfully transferred to EB-5 too. Again, it depends on how you structure it initially.
Sam Hussain
(15:07) And I also, I think it’s like once they actually went for the E-2, if they actually went to the right advisor or an immigration firm, and they’ve said, look, my purpose is to get a green card. I can start with an E2 to an EB-5. And if the immigration attorney actually gave them a good path, then this all would have been documented, would really help them, just not.
(15:28) Yeah.
Mona Shah
(15:29) But unfortunately there’s, again, it’s all about advice as well. It depends on the business. Some businesses work really well as an E-2 because you don’t have that 10 job requirement.
(15:41) It’s very successful if you have four employees and two part-time employees, but not when you have 10 full-time employees. So, it really depends on so many factors.
Rebecca Singh
(15:50) I think the amount too, because a lot of clients will spend maybe 200 at the most, 250 and can get away if it’s an E2, but can you really spend 800,000 on the business as well?
Mona Shah
(16:02) Yeah. We have many businesses where you just can’t spend the money.
Sam Hussain
(16:06) Wow. Wow. Now, a lot of people I speak to, they’re like, well, yes, I’m doing EB-5.
(16:13) I’ve started the process. I’m like, okay, that’s great. Who did you retain as an attorney?
(16:17) No, I haven’t. I mean, but they say I’ve started. What do you mean you started?
(16:21) Well, I started selling my property. I’m like, that’s not starting an EB-5. That’s not necessarily an indication.
(16:28) So a lot of people say, I’m selling my property, showing the sale should be sufficient for source of funds. Is that correct? Is that sale going to be good enough for their source of funds?
Mona Shah
(16:37) Rebecca, This is your area, Go ahead.
Rebecca Singh
(16:39) I’m going to say no. No, a lot more documentation is needed and they do go into, how did you get the funds?
(16:48) You need the initial seed funds and it has to be lawful funds to purchase the property. So you have to go back in time as well. Because I know we have clients and a lot of our Indian clients as well, when they have property that’s inherited over years, we still have to document how you had lawful possession.
(17:04) And then we get this common question too with a lot of clients who are like, oh, my tax returns as well are good enough. No, that just shows you paid taxes, but on what?
Mona Shah
(17:14) Actually, we find that from our British clients because they pay taxes. They’re like, look, we pay lots of taxes. That’s good enough.
Rebecca Singh
(17:21) Yeah. Or I earned this much amount of money. Of course, I have this.
(17:25) And I was like, well, you do, but you do spend that money as well. So USGS wants to actually see that. Have you saved those funds?
(17:32) Where are they being saved? Because a lot of clients don’t think, oh yeah, I went into a brokerage account, or I did purchase a property. Now, like you said, you have to sell that property.
(17:41) So tax returns also is not enough.
Mona Shah
(17:45) Oh, yeah. And Sam, don’t forget the famous cases of sales of property in places like India, where what the sale price is and what’s written for tax purposes are two completely different amounts.
Rebecca Singh
(18:00) I think we’ve had a lot of clients who have asked us before selling, and then they’ve ended up not doing that because they’re like, yeah, there’s no way. Yeah.
Sam Hussain
(18:08) But that’s why I keep on telling them, like there’s many other paths. So speak to an expert. Just don’t think it’s just on the back of the property sale.
(18:16) There’s many other paths, which we want to talk about. There’s a lot of things. But I want to go into this because we’re getting a lot of enquiries, a lot of enquiries from the US.
(18:26) I guess they’re really waking up to the deadline of this grandfathering you talked about earlier. And a lot of them are on H-1B visas. And the first thing they’re like, oh, are you looking at a project?
(18:37) I want rural. Straight away, I’m like, thank you. OK, I got it. What for?
Mona Shah
(18:40) We’ve been dissecting this. Obviously, we’re getting this as well.
(18:45) And I’m not going to say developers who have only rural projects are going to jump up and down. But it’s not necessarily the project at this point. Rural is faster, without a doubt, right now.
(18:58) The priority processing that US is doing, it means that we are getting rural cases back in eight to 12 months.
Rebecca Singh
(19:05) Well, I think it was first being prioritised. But then I think USCIS just got chaotic, I would say probably end of 24, beginning of 25.
Mona Shah
It’s still taking you out a year, Rebecca.
Rebecca Singh
(19:20) Yeah. But I feel like we were getting TEA cases in at the same time as getting rural. Yeah.
(19:25) So I don’t think they just kind of got lost on what they were doing and how they were adjudicating the cases. That’s true.
Mona Shah
(19:31) Right now, it is a little weird. But they’re also doing something else. So even if you go into rural, I think they just announced it.
(19:40) They’re going back to that. Is it that first in, first out approach?
Rebecca Singh
(19:45) So they just came out with this new inventory management system. So now, there used to be visa availability approach. And that was due to the backlog.
(19:53) So yeah, it’s not a strict first in, first out approach. It’s more prioritising, tiered approach, I would say, in the sense that they are trying to, I think they know they messed up. And they’re trying to get back in prioritising rural projects, because they do need to use the visas in that category.
(20:10) And as you said, Mona, earlier, that they’ve got this kind of superficial number out there on how much visas are being used in those categories.
Mona Shah
(20:19) But there is another thing. A few years ago, we heard that the way that USCIS was adjudicating cases was that they would wait for a project to accumulate a few cases, and then one examiner would go in, and he would do a handful of them. And we started seeing that, because there was, especially where we have the whole projects, and we started seeing a trend in the way things were answered.
(20:42) It was the same kind of format. So, you could see it was the same adjudicator who maybe did 10, 15 cases from that project. And then he would move on to the next one and the next one.
(20:50) So if they’re doing that right now, then a lot of the TEA projects are ready to be adjudicated. And then they will go in and they will adjudicate a bunch of those, even if the first one was put in maybe a year ago, and then the most recent one just a few months ago.
Rebecca Singh
(21:06) Yeah. Well, I think now it’s probably… If you have an I-956F approval, it will definitely…
(21:15) They will be looking at those cases and adjudicating those cases first in, first out basis. Yeah.
Mona Shah
(21:21) Yeah. Rather than any case which went in where there’s no F approval.
Sam Hussain
(21:25) Oh, well, that’s news. That’s really interesting. That’s good for me.
(21:30) Thank you, guys. I always have these kind of conversations. We speak to a lot of investors and they’re like, look, I’m only going to file into an I-956F approved project.
(21:41) And the project has a track record in repayments. And sometimes they even would invest in a project that has a full audit report. And should investors only choose projects with a track record, I-956, and also some audit reports?
Mona Shah
(21:56) So yes, track record is a real meaningful indicator, but it shouldn’t be your only filter. It can create blind spots. We’ve seen excellent projects through a random developer who’s just rented an RC.
(22:08) I think that you need to look at the project itself. You need to see whether the developer themselves have a background as opposed to the regional centre’s track record. It’s always about that project.
Rebecca Singh
(22:21) Yeah. Yeah. So you can have, yeah, we’ve seen this with regional centres all the time having multiple projects, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that each and every one will be successful.
Sam Hussain
(22:31) Okay, great. So look, there’s a lot of people in the US that want to do EB-5. They don’t have capacity to do 800.
(22:39) So they want to start filing partially with 150-200 to a stretch at 500 and 800, but they want to pay later. They’re looking for these kinds of projects. What would you say to them?
Mona Shah
(22:51) Well, this is a very big question, Sam. We probably will come back to this and revisit this, but I’ll let Rebecca give you a quick, concise overview.
Rebecca Singh
(22:58) Yeah. Well, I would say, first of all, yeah, it needs planning. Partial investments right now are being scrutinised.
(23:05) So even though the law is that it has to be fully committed or you’re in the process of committing, right? So even though it states that they have taken a hard stance, so there has to be proper planning, documentation. What is the reason that you’re filing partially?
(23:20) You just can’t say, well, I need future earnings. There has to be a reason as to why we’re doing a partial filing and kind of showing that commitment, fully commit the funds to the project at a certain time period. So we’d look at all those factors before determining whether or not it would be a good case for partial filing.
Sam Hussain
(23:38) So this makes your advice and your job much more difficult, right? That’s why people have to start much early. They just think, oh, I’ll just do partial.
Mona Shah
(23:48) Yeah, no, it does. Because then you have to remember to go back. You have to do the inter-filing.
(23:54) At times, and we’ve seen this, Mona, I can’t tell you how many times we’ve seen this, where USCIS, we’ve submitted the inter-filing and they didn’t receive it. They lost it. They come back with a huge RFE.
(24:04) So we’re re-answering again. So yeah, it becomes more of a headache.
Mona Shah
(24:07) Yeah, Sam, EB-5 is very different from other petitions that you do around the world. And it’s quite often the one of the most misunderstood as well. So, thank you for bringing these questions to us.
(24:18) I think it was very helpful and please keep gathering them and we’ll be happy to do them again. Right, Rebecca? Yes.
Sam Hussain
(24:25) I can’t thank you enough. These are very common questions and there’s more advanced questions and that will be people at a final stage. But look, thank you guys so much because this really helps.
(24:35) And I want to share this out to people that make enquiries. And we want to ask more questions because there’s more in-depth questions nowadays on the projects as well. And they want the attorneys to help them to understand those setups and frameworks.