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September 29, 2022 16 mins

Featured guests, Bruna Canto Managing Director of Latin America for FPP, and U.S. Immigration Attorney Tadeu Ferreira who is Managing Partner at Leaf Law – are joined by hosts Martijn Van de Veen of ICEF (International Consultants for Education and Foreign Students) and Craig Riggs, as they discuss visa options in the U.S. for international students and their families after graduation. 

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Unknown (00:00):
On today's episode of investing in the American Dream

(00:02):
podcast, we have featured guestsBruna kantele, Managing Director
of Latin America for FPP and USimmigration attorney to del
Ferreira, who is managingpartner at leaf law. They are
both joined by co host MartinVanderVeen of ISEF international
consultants for education andforeign students and Craig
Riggs. On today's episode, theywill be discussing and focusing

(00:24):
on visa options in the US forinternational students and their
families after graduation. Let'sget into it.
Being able to study overseasdepends as we all know on many
factors such as languageproficiency entry exams, budget

(00:47):
accommodation insurance, butespecially on the ability to
simply enter the destinationcountry, the ability to get that
much desired visa that actuallyallows you to study in the
destination country which is ourmain topic this month. Joining
me are Bruna canto managingdirector Latin America at first
pathway partners and TaddeoFerreira partner at leaf law

(01:10):
Bruna today. Oh, thank you somuch for joining you are both
visa and immigration experts andit would be great if you could
get us started with a briefintroduction of yourselves,
please Bruna.
Hi, Martin. Thank you very much.
So my name is Bruna. canto. I amthe managing director for Latin
America for first pathwaypartners. We are a regional
center authorized by the USImmigration Department USCIS to

(01:34):
offer EB five projects forinternationals looking to live
in the United States through theEB five program.
Right. And what's been theregional center and the EB five
program and a bit more detaillater in this episode. Today you
can watch and my name is TaraFajita. I'm the managing partner

(01:56):
of Leif Ferreira data visual,also known as Leif law. The firm
was founded over 20 years ago,almost 25. We focus specialize
in business immigration, inaddition to servicing individual
clients and organizations in theareas of say, EB five investor

(02:16):
visa, we also do extraordinaryability, national interest
waiver and other relatedactivities.
Right, thanks very much. To setthe stage, Bruna, can you walk
us through some of the currentvisa options that are available
to prospective internationalstudents?
Sure. So obviously, the firstoption is the f1 visa, the

(02:39):
international student visa,which only allows those who have
that visa to study in the UnitedStates and they're not able to
work or do a lot of otheractivities. I specifically work
with the EB five visa, whichactually allows for applicants
to obtain the green card. Sopermanent residents, this helps

(03:01):
international students in a lotof ways already while they're
studying. There are manybenefits, such as lower tuition
costs, increased number ofscholarships available to us
residents, higher acceptancerates to US universities, and
when they graduate, they areable to work anywhere and live

(03:24):
in the United States continueliving in the United States.
So the EB five sounds like avery attractive option. And I'll
have some more questions aboutthat specific visa in a second.
And just wanted to summarize thevisa opportunities that exist in
the US typically their r&d threestudent visa types. The one you
mentioned the F student visa theacademic student visa for study
at an accredited US college oruniversity or to study English

(03:47):
at an English LanguageInstitute. The M visa also known
as the vocational student visarates to non academic or
vocational study or training inthe United States and the J
visa, commonly known as theexchange visitor's visa has
focused on a range of culturalexchange programs. Now, you just
mentioned the the EB five visa,which I believe is not
technically a student visa, butdoes provide indeed, an

(04:10):
alternative to enter the US andthe ability to study there
today. Okay, tell us a littlebit more about this EB five
visa, when was it created? Andwhat are the conditions to apply
for an EB five visa?
So the EB five was created inthe early 90s as an option to
invest in the US business forthe purpose of creating jobs

(04:33):
minimum of 10 full time jobs,and the visa has evolved since
and we're going to discuss thatnext. But I would also briefly
like to touch on, which I thinkis very important to understand
and very relevant for thesubject is why EB five is often
the best in reality, sometimesthe only option available to

(04:53):
international students. So thisis a point of contention for a
very long time. There are alimited number of options in
terms of not immigrants, sosomething temporary to reside in
the US and people wouldobviously need to work in the
US, and also to emigrate, whichis the green card. So what often
happens is the options that arecent graduate, say, with a

(05:14):
bachelor's degree has to remainin the US are very limited. Of
course, this has improvedrecently with the STEM extension
of the op T, which allows forpeople to stay under the OPC, as
opposed to one year, which hasbeen the case now for three
years. But even accounting forthat the next step is always
very challenging, because aperson, let's say, with one or

(05:38):
three years of experience, doesnot normally have the employment
based options of showing thatthey have a long career of
success, and that they havevarious accomplishments in the
field, etc, which would allowthem to what we call self
petition, meaning I have reacheda certain standing in the field
and I can self petition toremain in the US, their options

(05:59):
are limited to a sponsorship. Someaning a company would have to
sponsor them for a position sothat they can remain in the US.
Now this option is normally theh1 be many, many years ago, the
h1 visa was not a bad option,because the cap was seldom
reached. But now, and we expectthat in the future, the cap will

(06:22):
be exceeded every single year.
So the likelihood even if you dofind an employer who's willing
to sponsor you, the likelihoodthat this application will be
selected in the lottery is Iwould say less than 25%. And
then what that also contributesto is making it more difficult
for people to find sponsors,because the sponsor is unwilling

(06:43):
to go through the process,knowing that even though we meet
all of the requirements, theindividual meets all the
requirements, it's up to chance.
And it's actually less likely orsay less than 50%, that there'll
be selected. So very often whatwe have seen in the past years
and an increase in demand forthe EB five, because you know,

(07:06):
someone that's investing in eventhinking about, you know, the
family, the family's investingin the child's education coming
to the US, it's obviously, youknow, requires a financial
commitment, but also familyplanning and all these things. I
mean, I can also speak formyself, I went through this, I
moved from Brazil to the US whenI was 18. Luckily, I had a green

(07:27):
card that my parents gave mewhen I was younger. So I was
lucky. But I studied and all ofmy international student friends
face this issue. And I would saya majority of them were forced
to leave because they did nothave this option. So EB five
actually became a good optionfor those people who are
planning more long term and wantto offer this opportunity to

(07:50):
their kids. Just want toclarify, I'm sure the majority
of our audience knows what agreen card is, but just want to
highlight that it's officiallythe Permanent Resident Card and
identity document that showsthat a person has permanent
residency in the United Statesand green card holders are
formally known as lawfulpermanent residents. Right. So
that's, that comes with a lot ofadvantages. So you're claiming
that the EB five is soattractive, but we of course

(08:12):
need to recognize that that hasquite a price tag attached to it
Bruna?
Yes, so the new amount, whichwas recently approved by the US
government in March of this yearis $800,000. The amount in the
past was 500,000 for almost 30years, and for a long time it

(08:32):
was there was a discussion inCongress regarding changing this
amount increasing this amount.
And this was finally done thisyear.
And the 800,000. Is that a onetime investment or is this
spread over a specifictimeframe?
Yes, normally, the full amountneeds to be invested before the

(08:54):
applicant is able to request theEB five visa. There are also
some additional fees, which Ilike to say can go up to an
additional $100,000 which arethe project's administration
fee, immigration attorney fees,translations and other

(09:15):
miscellaneous fees.
So we're going towards the $1million needed right to get this
started.
Yeah, so I'd say about 900,000.
But the most important part isthat the 800,000 is an
investment and it comes back tothe investor. So it is not an
expense only the additional say100,000 are actual expenses. But

(09:35):
as this is an investment, thecapital should come back to the
investor and normally after atleast five years.
Right so what we have here is amoney making opportunity for
those that can't afford it. Andwith that EB five come a lot of
additional advantages. I believeit allows for a green card for

(09:58):
the whole family and with allFamily I believe parents and two
children's I've Correct.
Actually, it includes allchildren under 21 that are not
married. So applicant, husbandor wife and all kids, regardless
of number that are under 21 andunmarried. So the larger the

(10:18):
family more benefits through oneinvestment amount,
if I can just add oneinteresting option for those
people who say are investing inthe EB five on behalf of a child
who's you know, in a USuniversity, what they can do is
gift the money to the child, thechild would then invest in the

(10:42):
EB five and receive the greencard in their name. And then in
the future, once they become UScitizens, which is five years of
green card, you're eligible tobecome a US citizen. Once you
become a US citizen, you canthen apply for a green card on
behalf of your parents. So youcould transfer that benefit of
the green card to your parents,who could then transfer it to

(11:06):
your other siblings. Of course,you can also apply for your
sibling. But that takes about 15years there other ways of
planning that can do it faster.
But the point is, even if youwere to do it in your child's
name, you could still extend thebenefits looking made long term
to the other family members.
And is this EB five visaavailable to any nationality?

(11:29):
Yes, so nationals of everycountry are eligible to apply
for the EB five visas.
Obviously, some countries havesome difficulties transferring
money out in order to make theinvestment but there are no
countries that are not qualifiedto apply for the five visa and
always the same amount and thesame rules independent where the

(11:50):
applicant isfrom credit. How does this EB
five visa opportunity in the UScompare with visa options in
other major study destinations?
Yeah, that's a great question. Iwas just reflecting on what
today I was saying earlier,which I think is a really,
really important context for ourdiscussion about this program.

(12:10):
The the broader trend in theworld amongst major study
destinations is towardsexpanding postgraduate work
opportunities and settlementopportunities for foreign
graduates. We see that inAustralia, for example, just in
the last couple of months, therewas a really significant
expansion of postgraduate workopportunities for foreign

(12:31):
students in Australia, we seethe same in the UK, we see the
same in Canada where post studywork rights have been expanded.
And also Canada has tied sort oflonger term immigration goals
much more directly to foreigngraduates than has been the case
in the past. And so I think it'dbe fair to characterize that as
a global trend amongst otherleading destinations, we do not

(12:51):
see the same policy movements inthe US, it's really optional
practical training. And therehas been admittedly some
expansion of that and the h1 Bvisa, which are the other
pathways for students to pursuepostgraduate and subsequently
settlement opportunities in theUS otherwise. And just this
week, I was just reading anacademic paper that was
published just this month thatwas talking about this very

(13:13):
issue and highlighting that theUS retains actually only a very
small percentage of foreigngraduates by the author's
reckoning 70% of master'sstudents, 90% of bachelor's
students leave the US aftergraduation. And those are much
lower retention rates than wewould see in other major study
destinations. And simply becausethere are no other channels by

(13:35):
which students can pursue workopportunities or settlement
opportunities in the US rightoutside of op T and h1 B, that's
the significance of the EB fiveis that it is an example of a
policy instrument in the US thatopens up some additional
settlement opportunities forgraduates after they complete
their studies. And there aredirect counterparts in other

(13:56):
countries, sort of immigrantinvestor programs, if you will.
But I think the significance ofit in the US context is that it
provides another importantchannel for students that wish
to remain in the US to work oreven to settle in the US after
their studies, which areotherwise not available.
Well, another factor that makesit very significant is that
according to Bloomberg, the EBfive Visa Program has attracted

(14:18):
more than 37 billion US dollarsin foreign investment since
2008. So I'm sure that this is avery attractive route, all those
involves somebody and as thestudents are going through the
green card application process,can they already work and study
during that process?
Yes, so this is a recent changewith the new program in the past

(14:40):
applicants for the EB fiveprogram had to wait for the
process to actually be approvedin order to obtain residency and
be able to work and have all thebenefits of permanent residents
with a new program approved inMarch of this year. Applicants
for the EB program are able toconcurrently file for Adjustment

(15:04):
of Status, which means thatthey're able to obtain work
authorization within a fewmonths. Currently, some
applicants for Adjustment ofStatus are receiving work
authorizations in as little asfour to five months. So this is
a game changer, especially forinternational students already
living in the United Statesbecause they can remain in the

(15:27):
United States, apply for EB fivewith adjustment of status and be
able to work in as little as afew months.
First pathway partners known asFPP, specializes in helping
foreign nationals obtain USresidency through the EB five

(15:49):
visa program. FPP has beenauthorized as a regional center
by the US Immigration Departmentsince 2008. Being one of the
oldest and most experienced inthe EB five industry, we take
care of the entire processmanaging our clients investments
and immigration requirements.
FPP has assisted hundreds ofimmigrant investors through the
EB five visa program from allover the world. FPP is one of

(16:13):
few regional centers to haveobtained various Permanent Green
Card approvals and redeemedinvestors full capital
contributions on variousprojects, placing us in the
highest category of EB fiveindustry achievement. With our
experience, investors can beconfident in our ability to make
their immigration and investmentjourney both secure and

(16:35):
worryfree
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