U.S. Department of State Releases Latest Visa Bulletin: China Cut-Off Date Not Anticipated To Be Imposed During FY2013

The U.S. Department of State released its Visa Bulletin for March 2013 earlier this month.  The central purpose of this Bulletin is to collect immigration data from consular officers and summarize the information concerning the availability of U.S. visas for allocation to petitioning immigrants. If demand exceeds the number of visas available within a fiscal year, the State Department issues a cut-off date for the oversubscribed countries. Only visa applications which were received before the cut-off date are given priority that year and are allotted a number for processing. The latest issue of the Bulletin states that visa demand patterns over the first six months of FY-2013 are averaging out to a manageable level, which is excellent news for IIUSA and our industry stakeholders because it predicts the likelihood that all EB-5 foreign investors petitions will be processed in FY2013. Furthermore, demand patterns indicate that FY2013 will be a record breaking year of EB-5 capital formation.  The Program is anticipated to contribute well over $2.0 billion USD to the already $4.7+ billion USD in EB-5 capital formation since 2005 - creating tens of thousand of American jobs along the way at no cost to the U.S. taxpayer.