The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services is set to terminate South Dakota’s participation in the EB-5 program, stating a failure to submit required information and demonstrate promotion of economic growth. U.S. Senator Mike Rounds says federal government officials have a right to ask questions.
The notice of intent to terminate lays out several flaws in the South Dakota Regional Center, including failure to fully account for capital investments, conflicting information on filings, and diversion of funds from job creation purposes. It also cites a lack of due diligence, monitoring, and oversight.
Senator Mike Rounds says EB-5’s intent is good. The idea is to bring in money for economic development purposes in exchange for visas for investors. But he wishes it would work correctly.
“The programs that went on successfully, we don’t normally talk a lot about those,” Rounds says. “We want to talk about the businesses which either went under, because they’re private businesses and private industry coming in, we’re focused on those. But nonetheless there was good that happened with the EB-5 program as well. Can it be made better? Yeah I think it probably can. But it does take oversight from the federal government. And if they are coming in and they’re asking for additional information or they want to make changes, that’s a healthy thing to have happen as well.”
Rounds says he won’t lobby to block the termination.