Why the Gold Card Announcement is Spurring EB-5 Activity

In an interview with Law360, JTC’s Jose Rincon discusses how the possibility of a Gold Card has affected EB-5 demand, how the two programs differ, and the major due diligence questions for immigrant investors.

Ever since the initial announcement of the proposed Gold Card visa program, JTC’s EB-5 experts have had to answer a lot of questions surrounding the future of EB-5. Publications from around the world have sought the expertise of our EB-5 team in sorting through the speculation and misinformation that has swirled around the Gold Card.

To help clear up some of the confusion about what we know and don’t know about the Gold Card and what it means for EB-5’s future, JTC Vice President of Business Development Jose Rincon sat down with Law360 to talk about a variety of topics, including how the EB-5 industry has responded in the wake of the Gold Card announcement.

“What we saw with the announcement of the Gold Card was a lot of these projects that have been in the making for a while — that developers and regional centers have been working on but maybe haven’t been moving along as quickly — started to fill up,” said Rincon. “You started to see the investors that were looking to get into these projects now having urgency to subscribe.”

EB-5 investors can be confident that any investments made before September 30th, 2026, will be valid under the EB-5 Reform and Integrity Act of 2022 (RIA). But for those in the industry seeking reauthorization of the Regional Center Program, the notion that the Gold Card might be intended to replace EB-5 is an unnecessary distraction.

“The standpoint here at JTC is the Gold Card shouldn’t replace EB-5,” said Rincon. “It could sit on the same platform, but it’s two different avenues that people can explore. It can be complementary.”

The key, as Rincon points out, is to highlight how the Gold Card, with a potential $5 million price tag, targets a completely different set of investors than EB-5.

“In the Gold Card, you might have wealthy individuals who are looking to fast-process their green card,” said Rincon. “They’re a different target audience, because not everybody’s going to have five million bucks just sitting around.”

What makes EB-5 different is not only its lower minimum investment amount, but where that money goes. While the Gold Card appears to involve a one-time payment to the U.S. Treasury, EB-5 involves investing in job-creating projects in American communities.

“Most of these projects are in underdeveloped areas, so you’re getting an influx of cash coming into these underdeveloped areas. That helps the community. Then, it creates jobs. It’s 10 jobs per investor, so if you have 10 investors, that’s creating 100 jobs without using taxpayer money.”

With many investors choosing to act now while they know they can participate in the Regional Center Program, Rincon covered a few of the due diligence questions investors would be wise to ask a prospective Regional Center.

“As a regional center, how many projects have you done? How many visas have you processed? What’s your visa rate in terms of the projects that you’ve done? Who are the people that you’re involved with in the industry to make sure that your project is running smoothly? Are you working with a securities attorney that is well-known in the industry? Do you have a third party, like JTC, that is overseeing the funds that doesn’t have any skin in the game, that their sole job is to look out for the investment of these investors and to look out for their immigration process to make sure that everything runs smoothly?”

The article also discusses JTC’s recent webinar on EB-5 investing in 2025, with quotations from Jill Jones and other panelists from the webinar. This is a helpful breakdown for those who may be unsure whether the things they’ve heard about the Gold Card and EB-5 are accurate, or anyone curious about the future of EB-5.