Navigating the immigration process can be overwhelming, especially for international students and professionals looking to secure their future in the United States. Lance Lee, the Director of Asia-Pacific EB-5 for Peachtree Group, shares his personal journey of coming to the U.S. as an international student, facing the challenges of obtaining a green card, and ultimately using the EB-5 program to secure his future. This is his story of perseverance, career transformation, and the profound impact that obtaining U.S. citizenship has had on his life and family.
Lance Lee's EB-5 Journey: From Student to U.S. Citizen
Lance Lee’s immigration journey began in 2008 when he arrived in the U.S. as an international student, facing the challenges of securing a job during a tough economic time. With his work visa options limited, Lance’s parents urged him to consider how long it might take to obtain a green card, and the answer wasn’t promising. Many of his friends faced decade-long waits for permanent residency. It was his mother’s practical advice “Time is money” that led him to explore alternatives. In 2011, Lance invested in the EB-5 Immigrant Investor Program, and just eight and a half months later, he received his green card. By 2015, his investment was returned, and he had successfully built his American family, becoming a U.S. citizen with two children born in the U.S.
Lance’s decision to apply for an EB-5 visa instead of relying on traditional student and H1-B work visas was fueled by the realities of the long wait for green cards, especially for applicants from China and India. After graduating in 2010, Lance was left with the daunting prospect of being tied to one employer for years under the H1-B system while waiting for a green card. The EB-5 program provided a faster and more secure path to permanent residency, allowing Lance the freedom to pursue a career that matched his passions, without the restrictions of a work visa.
One of the key reasons Lance turned to EB-5 was the limitations of H1-B visas, which often left workers vulnerable to sudden job loss. He shared stories of friends who, while traveling abroad, were caught off guard by emails informing them of their layoff, leaving them with just 60 days to find a new job or face losing their visa status. With EB-5, Lance was able to bypass these concerns, enabling him to make career decisions with confidence and travel freely without the constant anxiety that comes with the limitations of temporary work visas.
Lance’s journey also taught him valuable lessons about the EB-5 process, and he offers key tips for prospective investors. He emphasizes the importance of partnering with a reputable immigration attorney and recommends visiting the regional center before investing, to establish trust and gain a better understanding of the project. He breaks the EB-5 process into three stages: obtaining a temporary green card, securing the permanent green card, and finally receiving the investment back. For each stage, Lance stresses the importance of being patient and informed, ensuring that the investment meets job creation requirements and understanding how to eventually retrieve the invested funds.
Looking back, Lance reflects on the significant impact the EB-5 program has had on his life and his family’s future. Living in Kuala Lumpur, Lance and his family enjoy the flexibility of being U.S. citizens while gaining valuable cultural exposure in Asia. His children have had the opportunity to travel and learn from different cultures—experiences that wouldn’t have been possible if he had been stuck in a decade-long wait for a green card. Lance’s journey highlights the freedom that comes with making timely decisions and choosing the right path for both personal and professional growth. “Time is money,” he concludes, echoing his mother’s wisdom, as his decision to pursue the EB-5 program allowed him to shape the life he and his family now enjoy.
EB-5 Visa Types Explained
Each month the US State Department publishes the official Visa Bulletin, which is the source for information on visa availability in the United States. It shows which approved immigrant applicants may move forward to obtain their immigrant visa based on the date the original petition was filed: If your EB-5 petition is approved by USCIS, you go to the Visa Bulletin chart to see if there is a visa currently available for you.
There appears to be a tightening landscape for employment based visas. Final Action Dates and Dates for Filing were updated in the May 2025 Visa Update with unreserved EB-5 categories for India moving back, however no changes were made for the June Visa Bulletin.
Why were dates changed in May? We don’t know for sure, but it could simply be that the State Department took a closer look at how many petitions were approved and waiting for a visa. In the past, they may have moved dates closer to today in an effort to issue all of the visas available in a fiscal year. The new dates could reflect a change in policy to slow the number of visas used, simply a correction, or it might reflect that more I-526 petitions are getting approved.
The U.S. Department of State's May 2025 Visa Bulletin revealed that the unreserved EB-5 final action date for Indian applicants will retrogress by an additional 184 days, moving from November 1, 2019, to May 1, 2019. This marks the second consecutive retrogression for India, following a 792-day retrogression in April. In total, India's unreserved EB-5 final action date has retrogressed by 976 days across April and May, exceeding China's 905-day retrogression during the same period. The three reserve categories (Rural, High Unemployment TEA and Infrastructure) still remain current and provide more certainty for visa set asides for petitioners from retrogressed countries in the unreserved category. China remains retrogressed at January 22, 2014.
There was a footnote in the April 2025 bulletin suggesting it may be necessary to establish a final action date for unreserved Rest of World (ROW) beyond just China and India. If the ROW final action date for unreserved visas becomes backlogged, it will mean the much smaller number of ROW in reserved visa categories will become the only avenue for EB-5 investment for non-China or India investors. However, some industry players believe that a cutoff date for ROW would be short-lived, and it may actually be good news: pending ROW petitions may be fully digested, which could indicate a much lower risk of future backlogs for ROW.
Things are getting tighter right now, no matter your country of origin, now is the time to apply for the EB-5 visa.
There are 140,000 employment-based green cards available each year, with specific limits for each “preference” category. US immigration law also sets limits on the number of green cards available based on the country of origin. No single country of origin can account for more than 7% of the green cards issued across all family-based and employment-based categories.
Although generally not an issue for most countries, this country-of-origin cap can create backlogs for EB-5 investors from China and India. (Generally, there are not enough EB-5 applicants from Mexico or the Philippines to create backlogs for those countries, which are the only other countries subject to the country-of-origin caps.)
Potential EB-5 participants should refer to the Visa Bulletin to understand whether there are visas immediately available for them after their I-526 or I-526E petition is approved.
The chart for EB-5 from the latest visa bulletin shows the following:
This Visa Bulletin shows there is currently a backlog only for investors approved under the “old” EB-5 program, which was in place before the EB-5 Reform and Integrity Act of 2022 (the “RIA”), effective on March 15, 2022.
For Chinese and Indian pre-RIA investors, the dates are January 22, 2014 for Chinese applicants and May 01, 2019 for Indian applicants. Investors from China and India who applied under the old program after the cutoff dates listed (January 22, 2014, for China; May 1, 2019, for India) cannot immediately seek to get their visa and move to the United States. They must wait for the listed date to move forward to their petition’s application date, generally known as their “priority date”.
Note it is only the “Unreserved” preference category in EB-5 that shows a cutoff date. The new reserved preference categories for EB-5 all show as ‘C’ or “Current”, meaning anyone who has an approved EB-5petition related to the new reserved visas created by the RIA can start the process to immigrate to the US, even those from China and India.
Conventional EB-5 wisdom is that the country cap is calculated within each preference category, not across all preference categories. That would mean that no one country could have more than 7% of just EB-5 visas in any reserved visa category.
This is wrong.
In a US Federal Register announcement dated March 28, 2023, the US Government acknowledged they were calculating country caps incorrectly and outlined how country caps were to be calculated moving forward. Here is an article we have written to explain EB-5 visa country caps the confusion and why investors born outside of China and India can confidently choose between either a rural or high unemployment EB-5 project.
The cutoff dates do not move in lockstep with the real-world calendar. Date changes for China and India have several times in the last 18 months.
The Visa Bulletin dates are calculated by the Department of State based on information they have from USCIS about approved petitions. These charts do not show the impact of petitions that may have been filed before now, but are not, yet, approved.
The Visa Bulletin is the end of the story. To know how long a would-be immigrant might need to wait, it’s important to understand how many petitions might be in process ahead of them.
Think of the Visa Bulletin like a toll plaza on a highway. It lists how long the line is at the toll booth and separates the line for specific countries that have a backlog. However, the Visa Bulletin does not show how many cars are on the highway on their way to the toll plaza. Those are the pending petitions. This information is generally not made public, but there have been efforts by EB-5 industry groups to get this information. We will provide our analysis of this information separately.
Concurrent filing is a mechanism where EB-5 investors already in the United States can send in some forms at the same time as their first Form I-526E application, instead of waiting until that application is approved. With concurrent filing, investors can fill out and send in both their Form I-485 (Application to Register Permanent Residence or Adjust Status) and their Form I-526E petition at the same time.
Generally, this will allow those investors to travel in and out of the United States without any other visa, and to legally work in the United States without any separate employment sponsorship or visa. These investors may receive these benefits while their I-526E petition is pending, NO MATTER HOW MANY PETITIONS MAY HAVE BEEN FILED AHEAD OF THEM.
In our metaphor, this means that it does not matter how many cars are on the highway ahead of you. As long as there is not, yet a line at the toll booth, you may apply for these benefits. Essentially, if you’re here, you can stay here.
Have questions about EB-5, visit our website or fill out our contact form.
.jpeg)
ATLANTA (May 28, 2024) – Peachtree Group ("Peachtree") has received its I-956F approval from the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services ("USCIS"), the government agency that oversees the EB-5 Immigrant Investor Program, for the development of a Home2 Suites by Hilton in Boone, N.C.
USCIS adjudicated the I-956F petition for the hotel development in just five months.
"It is a testament to the due diligence of the Peachtree team that it was able to get the project approved so quickly, especially when the published processing time is over 15 months," said Adam Greene, EVP EB-5 for Peachtree Group.
Peachtree originated $21.7 million of fixed-rate construction financing over a five-year term for Narsi Properties to develop a 105-room Home2 Suites by Hilton near downtown Boone. This historic town, situated in the vibrant mountains of western North Carolina, is close to Appalachian State University, its 22,000-plus students and faculty, and numerous other demand generators including three of the most popular ski resorts in the state. The hotel is expected to be completed by Fall 2024.
"Construction is underway, demonstrating tangible progress and reducing initial project risks. Importantly, even as we raise EB-5 capital, Peachtree has bridged the loan, offering certainty of execution for the project and is maintaining an equity stake aligned with the same risk level as our EB-5 investors. This commitment ensures our interests are directly tied to the project's success, reassuring all stakeholders," said Greene.
The EB-5 visa program provides the opportunity for foreign investors to potentially obtain a green card in exchange for making a significant investment in a new commercial enterprise that creates jobs in the U.S. Under the program, foreign nationals who invest a minimum of $800,000 in a U.S.-based project that creates or preserves at least ten full-time jobs for U.S. workers are eligible to apply for permanent residency in the U.S.
"Peachtree Group launched its EB-5 program last year to provide an important financing tool that enables us to continue funding job-creating projects across the country," said Greg Friedman, Peachtree's CEO and managing principal. "This hotel development is expected to create roughly 328 jobs."
About Peachtree Group
Peachtree Group is a vertically integrated investment management firm specializing in identifying and capitalizing on opportunities in dislocated markets, anchored by commercial real estate. Today, the company manages billions in capital across acquisitions, development and lending, augmented by services designed to protect, support and grow its investments. For more information, visit www.peachtreegroup.com.