EB-5 Investor Visas vs. Trump Gold Card

Overview

In this episode of "Immigration Uncovered," we explore the landscape of U.S. immigration by investment as of mid-year 2025. Host James Pittman is joined by Divij Kishore, founder of Flagship Law, to unpack the current state of the EB-5 program, recent policy shifts, and the political buzz around the proposed “Trump Gold Card.” From visa backlogs to the potential for unprecedented tax perks for foreign investors, we dive into what’s real, what’s rumor, and what it all means for investors and immigration attorneys alike.

Episode Transcript

James Pittman: Welcome to Immigration Uncovered, the docketwives video podcast where we dive deep into the dynamic and changing world of immigration law. I'm your host, James Pittman. This is episode 54, and I am joined today by Divij Kishore, and he is the founder of Flagship Law, a law firm based in New York City and Manhattan. And he, has a full spectrum immigration practice, but with a particular emphasis on employment based immigration and immigration by investment. Divij, welcome to the program.

Divij Kishore: Thanks, James. Happy to be here. Thanks for having me.

James Pittman: So, Divij, I've invited you on today because we wanna talk a lot about the EB five investor visa program and the Trump Gold Card and how they intersect and the general topic of immigration to The United States by investment. So to start up, let's talk about the your impressions of the current state of the EB five program as of mid twenty twenty five.

Divij Kishore: Well, I guess, let let me put it in con in the context of 2024. In 2024, data suggests that about $4,000,000,000 were raised through EB five investment. That's $4,000,000,000 cash, which is then invested in The US market to create 10 jobs per investor, and therefore, the economic impact of that investment is much higher. Right? What seems to be happening in 2025 based on the volume of cases my practice is seeing is that there appears to be a lot of interest. There's there are a number of people who are very, very keen to pursue it quickly, effectively, and I'm I'm seeing that there's a lot of follow-up and interest coming in from clients who've, in some cases, gotten a little bit spooked with the overall rhetoric around, the investment based immigration, permanent immigration program in The US. And I view my job as a practitioner in the field, essentially, to kind of calm them down, focus on the regulation, and make sure that I'm getting them the best pathway

James Pittman: Mhmm.

Divij Kishore: To permanent residents in this in this country. James Pittman: Okay. So well, sure. But, I mean, let's talk about, you know, what specific changes have taken place, you know, between last year and this year? I mean, how about the status of reauthorizing the program? Have there been any changes to the requirements of the program like investment thresholds?

Divij Kishore: Sure. Well, investment thresholds changed in 2022 under the EB five reform and and integrity act. At present, there is talk about a change, in in the form of the gold card, which we can talk about, I think, separately. I I don't want to conflagrate those two issues. But what what we're seeing right now is essentially a continuation of something that's been in place for at least three years at this point. Right? The minimum investment threshold is $800,000 if you're investing in a TEA, targeted employment area. If you're investing in something else, then your threshold amount is $1,050,000. As far as reauthorization is concerned, the program on the regional center side is authorized until September 2027, which means that all investments that go in until September 2026 are good. Mhmm. What historical information will tell us is that in the last administration that was led by this president, There was a period of time where the program was not reauthorized for several months. Obviously, that was very painful, only for investors, but for businesses, regional centers who rely on these investors in The US.

James Pittman: Mhmm.

Divij Kishore: Nothing really to indicate right now legislatively where we are headed. Obviously, the midterms coming towards the September 2026 may impact that, but I don't want to engage in speculation there. I guess suffice it to say for now that there is nothing to indicate that we need to be too concerned on the regional center side of things, but that can change very quickly depending on what happens on the administrative push for the gold card program, what happens with the political rhetoric

James Pittman: Yeah. This whole I mean, I I I I'll engage in a little bit of speculation since I'm the host. But, I mean, did you so going back to the Trump one administration, when we had that lapse of the several months, do we have a picture of why they allowed it to lapse? I mean, what the politics were about, or was it some something else? I mean, what do we know?

Divij Kishore: Well, we we know a little bit. We know that Mhmm. The the reauthorization issue got mixed in with funding the government and and making sure that the government remained open. And as a result, people were unwilling to reach across the aisle, and that was resulting in challenges for for the program being reauthorized frequently. It was causing a lot of pain for investors who were, in some cases, rushing at the last minute to make investments that they really should not. This is probably the most consequential investment that these individuals will make in their lifetime, whether it's a big portion of their net worth or not. And so I think that that may play in again. We've already started to see that happen a few times since the administration changed in January. Mhmm. But, again, I I'd be speculating at this stage.

James Pittman: So I would now if if it's just for me to speculate just a little bit more. So, I mean, with given the push for a so called gold gold card, which we're gonna talk about in just a second, I don't wanna sort of mix that topic in yet. But, well, it looks like if they were gonna push for the gold card, I mean, one wonders whether they would take the opportunity of the reauthorization deadline to try to, you know, leverage that deadline, to push for the gold card. I mean, that's if I'm gonna speculate, that's that that's my speculation of what could be in the works. But, again, I know I don't wanna

Divij Kishore: I'm happy if you could counterpoint to that without

James Pittman: Okay.

Divij Kishore: If you look at the dates, 02/25/2025 is the first date in on which the the gold card program was proposed. It was proposed as a replacement for the EB five program. That rhetoric has already rolled back to some extent because I don't think that you can do, and I think that the administration realizes that you can't do by administrative action something to undo legislation that has happened as far back as in 1990, which is when the EB five program was first implemented. In March 2025, the commerce secretary made a statement where he indicated that thousand gold cards had been sold. I'm struggling to understand how that statement was made without legal basis. On the April 3, a prototype of the card was shown to the press. In June 2025, the Gold Card website was launched where you can express interest. And I think on last estimates, I I I saw that the the expectation was somewhere around 70,000 people had expressed an interest, although I'm sure it's much more than that. I will say I have put my name down there. I wanna know what the bull card is as we possibly can, but I'm not gonna invest $5,000,000. And I I think it's it's also relevant to mention that as of, I think, the 05/07/2025, there was a report in Wired. I think they were the first ones to report it, which indicated that applicants for global entry was Trump Gold Card as one of you know, I have a pending Trump Gold Card application pending as as one of the categories that they could pick. So with that being said, I'm not sure things can move quickly in this administration. And there there is certainly there's there's the intention to to reform. I'm not sure how that reform is really going to happen. I welcome reform in any form. Right? And I think immigration law can really use an update. And whichever administration does it, I'm just happy for there to be reform. I just don't think that this is what reform looks like.

James Pittman: Yeah. No. I don't think so either, and I don't think many people do. But we're gonna get to the we're gonna get to a full discussion on the gold card. But let's talk first about a couple of other things. So let's see here. So I've heard that over the with the current administration at least, and perhaps even a little bit before, there has been increased audit oversight and an increased focus on on job creation and and ramping up the stringency of the examination of the job creation requirements of the petition. Yes. So, for example, you know, more rigid standards of documentation or or coming out with an RFE for, you know, questioning what they see as overly optimistic job creation projections or an increased emphasis on investor accountability. I mean, how have you seen this play out in in your practice?

Divij Kishore: Well, a big part of my practice is representing investors who make direct investments. And the reason that they choose to make direct investments is because you guys are serial entrepreneurs. They have a lot of confidence in their ability to bring money into The US and actually run a business that will result in not only the EB five for them. They see the EB five as a side benefit. For them, it's the joy of having that business that's that's great. Of course, this is also playing out very extensively for regional centers, which have much, much more responsibility as far as this documentation is concerned. But I will say my practice does not really involve representing regional centers in their petitions, although I see those petitions ultimately when I represent the individuals who invest in regional centers. What I will say is that under the terms of the reform and integrity act, I think that there has been some positive progression in the manner in which the program is being administered. I think that there have been too many instances of regional centers overpromising and under delivering, and that impacts individuals. It impacts the trust in The US immigration system. It impacts the the trust that people have in The US economy, and I think that that that's helping. Obviously, the flip side of that is that there's been a 200% increase in some filing fees. There has been there's a lot more scrutiny. There's there's a lot more site visits, but I don't necessarily see that as a bad thing because very often, investors will come to me at the stage of you know, we put in $250,000 out of our $800,000 investment, And then we started to do our due diligence, and we realized that there was something problematic. We don't really see a building coming up. We don't see a health care center really operating where we were told there's going to be a health care center, and this is something that's been going on for about twenty years. And by the way, I researched the individual who's the promoter of the project, and they've been prosecuted for fraud in the past. The attorney who represented me in the EB five investment was introduced to me by the regional center. What do I do? Now that's where my litigator mind as a commercial disputes lawyer kicks in. I do not get directly involved in those disputes, but I see my role as an immigration attorney to quarterback e b five investments. And so in scenarios like that, there are provisions under the e b five reform and integrity act that you can leverage to get the kind of information that will give you some insight into what really is going on with your project. And I will say that there are great regional centers out there that have a stellar track record, that have never had a project fail, and they are very, very committed to making sure that they deliver for their investors. And I I love those guys, but I think that the reform and integrity act is really helping in in terms of ensuring that there's more confidence in the system. And some of that confidence also eroded from the fact that the program was not reauthorized for a period of months. And that was the first time that that happened in over thirty years. So I I think that it was a much needed piece of legislation.

James Pittman: Well and and, again, we're gonna get to the gold card, but do you think the all the, sort of kerfuffle around the gold card, is that also making people wonder, investors wonder if the EB five has a future, or is it have you have you seen it affect people's perceptions of the program from the outside at all?

Divij Kishore: It's it's definitely seeming to affect people's perception of the EB five program because the gold card program was initially billed and promoted as a program that would replace the EB five. As I said, I don't see the administrative, legal, legislative means to do that. But if it would happen, I I I just don't know how it would play out at this. What I will say is that I I feel like investors have started to calm down on that a little bit. There's there's seemingly a a little bit of backtracking happening in terms of the rhetoric that's coming in from the administration as well as far as whether they would replace or do away with the EB five program entirely. And I think it's there's there's just something problematic with making these blanket statements about, you know, the EB five program is just full of fraud. It's not. There there are so many people who are committed to the program, who are committed to running businesses in The US and creating projects that benefits this entire country. So I don't see that that a one size fits all approach is going to work here, but it's definitely causing some amount of discomfort.

James Pittman: Yeah. We're gonna get to a full discussion of coal car in a second. So, I mean, right now, we're facing I I looked at the Visa bulletin, the most recent, and there's been retrogression, especially with India and China recently. In your estimation, how severe are the delays? And are the set aside categories a better path?

Divij Kishore: Short answer, set aside categories are definitely the better part. Mhmm. I have seen cases in my first hand experience, have been pending in some situations for forty eight months, fifty months. And you are unable to so much as put in an inquiry to see what the status of the case is. Of course, from USCIS' perspective, they have an argument to say that, know, these are complex cases. But USCIS has a designated office that is full of all these expert economists and commercial individuals who understand what's going on and are able to read these papers and and are able to make decisions. So why is that not working? Why are these cases taking so long? Of course, retrogression is something that, you know, no one can really fully account for, except perhaps the Department of State. But I just I'm I I just typically advise my clients that if they can stay away from the regular categories of the EB five and go for one of the, you know, the the designated categories, they're probably going to be better off, which is also a good reason to be in the regional center investment rather than the direct investment.

James Pittman: What are what are the top countries that you see people coming from?

Divij Kishore: China and India, for sure.

James Pittman: Mhmm. Okay. Just for

Divij Kishore: the sake There's there's huge demand. There's historically been huge demand from China in any case, but I think that there is definitely an uptick in demand from individuals who are from India born in that country, particularly tied to the fact that other employment based immigrant visa categories are just not workable for individuals who were born in India at this time. There's there's almost no progression happening. There's a a lot of these individuals are extremely successful in their careers in The US. And while there are other things happening, which maybe I don't need to go into in detail, but things like the h one b modernization rule, which allows that the entrepreneurs while on h one b status, etcetera. While that's happening, it's not I don't think it's enough to give them comfort, and and I understand it. Why would you not want to if you've been living in this country and working here for, in some cases, fifteen plus years, why would you not want to shore up your position? And if one of the other employment based routes or a family based route is not an option for you, and you have the funds for it, absolutely, the EB five should be a viable option.

James Pittman: See, now that's interesting because, that angle is sort of I mean, a lot of people would think that when you're talking about immigration from investment, you're you're you're talking mostly about people who have sort of made a fortune or made a lot of money outside The United States and then just wanna come here by virtue of making the investment, creating jobs. Well, you're talking about people who have who have been working in The United States on other visas and have done so very successfully. And then they're just foreclosed from other employment based, immigration pathways, and they don't have a family they don't have qualifying relative or a family based pathway. So you're seeing people who are using the the EB five program from from from those demographics.

Divij Kishore: That's correct. And and I will say that in in my practice, I do end up representing people from the technical field, STEM fields quite a bit. And these are all individuals who are working in big tech. They've had long careers in The US. They have, in some instances, been listed as inventors on patents. They've authored research that's been published in tier one journals, and they're rewarded for being as good as they are, as they should be. And as a result, they have the funds now to be able to essentially pursue a different green green card pathway. And I I would say it's not I I don't really view it very differently from purchasing lawful permanent residents in The US. So long as you are doing it the right way, being guided correctly, investing in the correct regional center, one thing that I always like to tell my clients is that it's not just an immigration attorney that you need to be speaking with. You need to speak with a corporate law attorney. You need to be speaking with a securities attorney. You need to understand what you're investing in and do a diligence really before you actually invest.

James Pittman: So that demographic that we're talking about right now, people who had successful careers on working on Visas in The United States and are gonna use EB five, you you see those as mostly going toward the regional centers, because they probably wanna maintain their existing career. They're they're not the entrepreneur demographic who's looking to establish their own enterprise.

Divij Kishore: Well, I think that that's the more practical route. It doesn't have to be, but it is the more practical route. For example, someone who did who's on the h one b visa working in big tech and decides to set up their own enterprise as an e b five enterprise, one of the requirements of the e b five is that you have to be directly involved in the operation of the enterprise. How do you do that before you've gotten work authorization through your e b five based green card application? So you, as of January, under the h one b modernization rule, you sponsor yourself, but that raises a whole different set of questions, which, yeah, I feel like we would we'd we'd go into a bit of a fizzy if you started going through all of that right now.

James Pittman: So let's talk about the let's actually get into talking about the Trump gold card because it's really what threatens to create a sort of an earthquake in this whole niche. So the Trump gold card, essentially, the way it's been described is applicants would, in theory, pay $5,000,000, which and there would be no job creation requirement. There would be a special tax treatment.

Divij Kishore: Mhmm.

James Pittman: It would be a fast tracked route to permanent residency, and and there was some talk I believe there was some talk of an expedited route to citizenship, which, again, is something which can't happen without legislation. The whole program can't happen with without legislation. Let's take these requirements one by one. I mean, what do you what do you make of the fact that, let's just start with the most obvious thing. What do you make of the fact that the requirement here would be, you know, 5,000,000 versus the the current requirements under the EB five program? I mean, what does that filter what does that mean in terms of the demographic it would appeal to, the number of people who would, you know, theoretically be interested? How does it compare to requirements of comparable programs around the world if you have that information handy? Yeah. And your thought your any other thoughts on the 5,000,000 requirement?

Divij Kishore: Yeah. Happy to talk about it. I think that it's easy to to talk about it in abstract terms and say 5,000,000 sounds like too much. Not too many people want would want to invest that. I can't imagine that there would be enough demand. But I think if we put it in real number terms, it it starts to become a little bit clearer. So the Trump cold card program is being built currently, And I'm saying currently because it's kind of evolved since February in the manner of or or in the nature of the rhetoric surrounding it. But it's being built currently as a program that would pay down the debt deficit in this country. Right? $36,000,000,000,000 of debt would be impacted by the investment that is going directly to the federal government, I assume. And and the reason I say I assume is because initially, it was meant or it was spoken about as a program that would replace the EB five. So how do you do that without, you know, having the job creation requirement and investing in a business, etcetera? So maybe we're not talking about a replacement for the EB five, but an alternative to the EB five that is slightly better than the EB five because the EB five makes you subject to global taxation, whereas the Trump coal card would not, and we we can talk about that in more detail. Let's talk numbers first. There are, by estimates, about 33,500,000 people with at least $1,000,000 outside The US. Only one and a half million non Americans are said to have net assets of a value of 5,000,000 or more. Assuming that everyone invested each and every one of those individuals invested $5,000,000, how much how many investors do you think you would need to pay down the full deficit in this country? I'll give you the

James Pittman: Let's get out the calculator.

Divij Kishore: 7,200,000,000.0. Oh, right. So it's how how many individuals are you really expecting will invest in this program to make a significant enough dent in our trade deficit here? Let's and and everything else that we're talking about, let's let's not get into the economics of it, but let's just talk about numbers again. Right? There's an organization called Henley and Partners in The UK. They report that there are about a 142,000 millionaires who will be driven to leave their countries over the course of the next year. Assuming we got each and every one of those investors into The US and brought them and and and each and every one of them put in $5,000,000 into The US, I still don't view it as a significant enough dent into what what we're talking about as or or what the rhetoric seems to suggest would just be this magic pill that's going to solve all the problems that our economy is currently facing. I don't think that this is this is what that is. There's been talk I'll I'll come back to, I think, a

James Pittman: a Well, then what do you think it is? What what do you think the real motivation is?

Divij Kishore: For someone to to buy into the gold card program?

James Pittman: The if if if if, economically speaking, this program is is there is not really a conceivable way that it's gonna make a very substantial impact on the national debt, what do you have any idea of what the administration's real motivation is?

Divij Kishore: I think it's an effort to make a promise to to reform, to improve. But I think it's a promise that's that's lofty. It's it's got lofty goals. But I I don't think that there's enough of a cohesive thought process between what the program is and how it will it'll achieve the goals that it's setting out to achieve. I I I I understand that there's been some sort of involvement from DOGE as well in the program and developing systems around the program. But if you look at who in DOGE has been involved, and without naming names, I mean, these are folks who have openly engaged in xenophobia and have been called out for it. And and maybe their views will change. Hopefully, views will change. But I don't think that those are the people that you want making decisions on such critical policy matters for this country. Right? And and in the same realm of regulation and data and information that we have, countries that have similar programs are Portugal, Malta, Greece, Singapore, The UAE. Their programs are not as anywhere near as expensive as $5,000,000, And countries that have tried it or and either suspended it or have terminated it, suspended pending investigation includes Spain, Latvia, Cyprus. I'm just not sure that that's a list that we would necessarily want to be a part of in in The US. But if I really had to put my finger on what what demographic of people is going to invest in it without engaging in speculation. As I said, I I like to focus on data that I have, information that I have. One of the things that strikes me is birther tourism. Right? Individuals who are high net worth, who come to The US only to have children or or deliver children with the intention being that they will that their children will have US citizenship and therefore be better off in the long term. And I'm not saying that that's happening in real life. If it is, these are individuals who have the resources to spend $5,000,000 and not even bat an eyelid. The fact that that would ensure that they can do that and not make their global income taxable in The US makes it even more valuable for them.

James Pittman: That's very interesting, and it's highly counterintuitive because we hear in the media the, you know, the rhetoric always focuses on birth tourism, you know, people crossing the border just to have a child, things like that, especially the southern border. But it's always focused on, you know, sort of this usually, the Central American migrant populations. You don't you don't you don't hear, accounts of, you know, high net worth or very high, ultra high net worth people engaging in birther tourism. Although they they have the they would certainly have the means to. It would be much easier for them than for anyone else. But that's interesting because, if people were doing that, if they were flying in from wherever to have a child and flying out again, Given the executive order that would, you know, not grant birth citizenship at birth, to children of parents who were here on a temporary status like a tourist visa, those children would no longer become citizens. Now having said that, we just wanna add for purposes of clarity that the executive order on, birthright citizenship, is blocked, by two different courts. It is blocked by a federal district court in New Hampshire pursuant to class actions to file by the ACLU at the June. It is also blocked by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling on the constitutional merits and affirming the trial court's decision that the executive order was unconstitutional. So I just wanna put that out there that the executive order is still blocked in case anyone hears this and doesn't know that. But that's very interesting. So, yeah, theoretically, could, you know, would theoretically, that high end berotourism demographic might be interested in the gold card.

Divij Kishore: Yes. I and I I would say, I mean, if I were someone in that category of individuals or with that kind of money to throw around, I'd I'd view $5,000,000 or something that that I could put on my black card and and basically make it a credit card expense over the weekend. Right? I I I don't really see it as a huge enough expense to them. But I what I wanted to mention is that I think it's also important for us to keep in mind the decision of the Supreme Court. And was it Trump v Casa? Where without getting into the the the court didn't really go into the underlying constitutional law issues, but they did say that they they did limit nationwide ex and judge to some extent. So with with the litigation that's going on right now, some of that has been we've you know, it's it's still fine because there's a class action, but it's something that we need to keep an eye on for sure.

James Pittman: For sure. For sure. Let's talk about the job creation requirements. So if there were a gold card, it has no job creation requirement. So that sort of moots the, really, the central purpose of the e b five or one of the central purposes of the e b five program, which is to facilitate job creation, and allow a pathway for foreign investors to come to The United States so long as they're creating jobs. So how do we make sense of this? How do we make sense of a new alternative that would not have that requirement? And what can we do you think based on what we've mentioned about the demographics of people who might be willing to spend $5,000,000, do you think that the EB five program will suffer as a result? And, consequently, the areas that are benefiting from job creation would suffer as a result.

Divij Kishore: I I I think that I am probably too small in the larger scheme of things to to make a decision or or to really make an informed opinion there. What I what I do think that I can speak to is the fact that there's there's talk about the gold card program being fit into the what's what's called the e b two national interest waiver category. Now the requirements for that in my mind are very, very different from what a gold card would bring, but that's the reason at the top of this conversation, I started with the fact that in 2024, it's projected that $4,000,000,000 were raised over of of capital was infused into The US market through EB five investment. And the reason why that's so important for me, and and and I wanna go back to that, is because you generate jobs out of that $4,000,000,000. You generate more revenue out of that $4,000,000,000. You put that $4,000,000,000 to use. I or or to work. Sorry. I don't see how what is being proposed right now as the Trump gold card achieves those same objectives. And if it doesn't, does it really matter that the amount of investment is five x what it is currently or a little more than five x what it is currently? I would argue no. I I I'll I'll give you an anecdote in in this context. One of my very early e b five cases that I worked on was a direct investment. A different council had represented them when they made the investment, and about seventeen, eighteen years had passed since the investment had happened. The principal investor had been unable to get a decision on their petition for removal of conditions on their investor green card. And the reason for that was that USCIS was not being able to determine that the amount invested was in fact at risk. What what that tells you is that there is these adjudicatory delays are not not helping anybody, but it tells you that in that period of about eighteen years, I was able to see real empirical data on what the investment had resulted in. And I was that was actually part of my response to the request for evidence. There was more procedurally that that happened in the case, but ultimately, we ended up with a request for evidence essentially asking us to demonstrate that the capital was in fact at risk. And we were actually able to give the agency data to show that while the initial amount invested was 500,000, which is what the amount was back then, the that had resulted in revenue generation of a considerably higher sum resulting in the investors' net worth having grown from about $700,000 when they made the investment to 4 and a half million dollars on the date that we were responding to the RFE. And so we were able to submit reports of how the economic impact of that investment had been so much more than the capital infusion. And so one of the core arguments that we made in that RFP in the RFP response was that, yes, your focus is on was the capital at risk, but what better proof is there of the capital being of at risk other than the fact that there has been so much revenue generation and so my so many other individuals who have been employed, this individual had taken their initial business and expanded it into a much larger operation, sold it, and then set something else up. And and I I I just think that that's a that's a case study in how impactful e b five investment can be. I I just don't see the same benefit coming from a $5,000,000 investment that goes straight to the federal government. Of course, I mean, full faith and credit to the federal government, if they could if they can give the same type of economic benefits from it, great. Sure. Happy to see that happen.

James Pittman: Yeah. Do you think there's room for both options to coexist?

Divij Kishore: I think there is, but I think it's going to result in in a lot of I I think any attempt to really bring the e b five program or or sorry. To bring the Trump gold card program to fruition is going to be met with robust litigation. I don't see a way for them to for for for the administration to do it in this environment without breaking a number of things. EB five investments are the subject matter of legislation, regulation. There is case law that that's been developed over the years. There's so much infrastructure around it. You don't just get to throw the baby out with the bath bathwater. And when when someone makes an e b five investment in The US, not only are they working with USCIS and meeting USCIS regulations, they may be working with the Department of Labor. They may be working with the SEC. They may be working on CFIUS. Right? We don't know how much of this is going to apply to a gold card investment. So certainly, there will be litigation, but in the event both programs are, you know, in in some world coexisting, I'm I'm struggling to see a reason for a a sophisticated investor to say I'm going to put my funds into the gold card program as against the EB five program unless they have some reason to rush US citizenship or rush green card status in The US, which I think in in with a country that is that takes its national security so seriously as it should, why would you want to take away resources from a program that's already so burdened? We talked about the adjudication delays in the program. Why would you want to take those resources away and then redirect them to something else? And if you are able to run both programs efficiently, I don't I don't see how having both running at the same time is really going to have an impact to benefit the country or to the investors in each program. I guess what I will say there also is that maybe I just don't have the vision that the administration does. James Pittman: Well, let's remember where we are. I mean, just sort of in process. In terms of process, the visa categories, all the visa categories are statutorily created. They are provisions of federal law codified at title eight of the United States code. And the executive branch has is is not able to create a visa category out of whole cloth without legislation by congress. At least it's not supposed to be able to do that.

Divij Kishore: Mhmm.

James Pittman: So the normal course of things is for a bill to change the law or create a new provision of the law to be introduced into congress and for that to go through committees and be voted on. And if it becomes law and the president signs it, then it becomes law. Now when the when the federal agencies are setting about trying to implement that law, then they go into the rulemaking process, which is where they draft draft federal regulations, and they publish that draft, and that draft is supposed to be open to comment. And, and then pending receipt of comments, then a final rule is is issued, and those become the rules of the program. So we're quite far from that. I mean, all we have is a proposal, a website in which you can submit your email address if you're interested. Interested can mean anything. I mean, you just have a passing interest in knowing more about it. And, you know, so so where you know, let's talk about what what do you so we're quite far, actually, from really knowing what the administration, what their other words, we don't have any studies. It's not like legislation's been introduced, now it's being debated in committee, and we have testimony from experts, or we have studies that have been done on what the economic impact would be or any type of projections. We don't really have any type of projections.

Divij Kishore: Even the tax code would need to be amended.

James Pittman: Even it said yeah. I didn't even get I didn't even get to that yet. Even the tax the the the the Gold Card proposal says that it's gonna exempt 100% of the foreign earned income from people who apply for the Gold Card or get the Gold Card, from US taxation. Now that they would be the only class of residents, of The United States who would receive such a tax exemption.

Divij Kishore: It would make them better than US citizens.

James Pittman: Better better than yeah. To be treated much better than US citizens by virtue of having this gold card. See, they would sort of be floating above the tax treatment of everybody else, including US citizens, by not having their worldwide income taxed by The US. That would require a change to the tax code. Nothing's been introduced. No bills have been introduced. So we just have to remember where we are in the process. And then then it takes us back to square one about how much of this is rhetoric only, how much of this is fantasization, how much of this is playing politics. We just don't know. But in your estimation, what what are we looking for next? What would be the next sort of developments that we should watch for?

Divij Kishore: Well, so so far, I've said I like to keep away from rhetoric. Now I'm going to change a little bit of that statement. Sure. I like to keep away from the rhetoric, but I listen very closely to the rhetoric. Because I think the rhetoric tells you what's in the mind of the regulator, what's in the mind of the administration, what's in the mind of the legislation legislators. Right? And so far from everything that I can hear, I think that there was an initial expression of support for the gold card program because the EB five program is so bad, and we're in this environment of just general vilification of immigrants, which is not helping anybody, and I think xenophobic. But now when the practicalities have been considered, I I as I understand it, without naming names again and without don't don't ask me to attribute this quote. But one of the issues, as I understand it, with the gold card is that they literally want to have the card be made of gold and having that be something that is readable in the way that a typical green card can be read is is proving to be a challenge. I'm I'm happy that those are the distractors. Right? But I am listening to

James Pittman: I don't I don't wanna I don't wanna laugh. It's a it's a it's a bit comical.

Divij Kishore: I mean, it's it's definitely an interesting time to be an attorney in, and it's it's but that said, I don't I think I serve my clients by being the one who's keeping my ear to the ground and listening for what's going on. As soon as I start to hear something that might be problematic, I want to be able to tell my clients who are currently in the process of evaluating which regional center do I want to invest in. Do I like this one, or do I like that one better? Do I wanna set up my own business? I have a business that I set up with the intention of within one year, once I've been able to do a proof of concept, bringing in another $2,000,000 of my money and developing a separate part of it and then making that my investment. I wanna be able to tell those clients that now is the time that you, you know, you put the pedal to the metal, get this done, get your e b five petition in. I also want to keep the rhetoric in mind in the context of what we're expecting for adjudications. Because I think that historical data tells me that when USCIS doesn't like something about an e b five petition, they just at the bottom of the file and forget about about it. What happens to the individual who invested and their family is is not their concern. This administrative environment is also presenting another challenge, which is unprecedented, where denial rates for a 29 petitions for removal of conditions on your investment based green card have spiked. They were we were seeing about 90% of those petitions being approved before. Now we're seeing only about 76% being approved, which does not which may not seem like a bad number, but in my mind, that's a really bad number. Like, for me, one denial is a bad number. And and that's why I want to keep an eye on those adjudicatory trends to see what we need to do. My practice is quite reactive in that sense, and my practice as an immigration attorney has been almost has been majority during an administration that's been led by this president. So it's it's been very actively evolving based on the volume of cases that I'm doing Mhmm. What the RFEs are raising questions about, how much evidence do I want to share at the initial stages, how much evidence do I want to maybe save for the instance of a request for further evidence. At the same time, there's this proliferation of the use of AI. And there's there's a temptation, of course, in the context of big numbers to use AI to crunch large documents. And as lawyers, I I mean, I will tell you from firsthand experience, I don't like to deal with numbers. But that's that's kind of having a negative impact as well because adjudicators are now starting to look at documents more carefully. I don't know how much they're using AI in their own adjudications, but I I just wanna make it really, really easy if the adjudicator wants to go through a check the box exercise and go through my petition that way. I wanna make it really easy for them to do it. And what I'm finding is that I'm increasingly having to find some sort of a balance between giving them a lot of information and making that information digestible.

James Pittman: Alright. Well, that's a good that's a good segue, Divij, because I did wanna ask you while we still have a little bit of time about sort of some more concrete, granular aspects of your practice these days because you you have an interesting background. You know, you did commercial litigation. Now you're running a full spectrum immigration practice right in the heart of New York City in the Financial District. So let's talk about sort of being the most, future forward modern immigration lawyer that you can be. Tell me tell me a little bit about the technology that you're using nowadays in your practice, what your so called tech stack or what the various array of tech tools you're using is, and how much have you incorporated artificial intelligence in your practice?

Divij Kishore: Well, we do try to use technology as much as we can. I think that that enables us to distinguish ourselves from, as a practice in some ways because when a client comes in, there's a there's a onboarding process that happens, whether it's for a consultation or for a full blown case. There is an onboarding process that happens that they need not even know about. The those first initial questions that are asked about, what is your name? What's your phone number? What's your email address? That's going into a system at the back end that is then enabling us to track how many times are we followed up with this client. How many when is our next due deadline for this client? What workflow do we wanna put this client on? Is is this client an asylum applicant who wants to consider an e b five petition? And that may be completely impractical. So what exactly are we going to be able to do to help this client out? Very often, a client will come to us like that. And because my practice is full service, I'm able to say, you know, we'll we'll just represent you on your asylum case. But we we leverage Docketwires to do a lot of that. We leverage low pay to make sure that our payment systems are are not a pain factor as far as possible. Of course, I mean, ultimately, we are running a business, and and there are pain factors all over the place. But we do try to make sure that wherever we can automate through technology, we do. We we like to use just automated reminders going out to clients. We don't even get typically retainer agreements signed physically. And I will say that for the most part, e b five clients are very happy to do everything remotely. In fact, they tend to appreciate the fact that their first contact happens with me. It's it's not that, you know, my secretary is calling them or my assistant is calling them. They're available on the phone, but that's not I mean, we're not trying to make a sales pitch to them. We're trying to get to the heart of what do you want to achieve and how quickly can we help you achieve it. And that goes for someone who's going through an EB five process and therefore making a much more significant investment in The US market. And for someone who's, you know, going through an e two or an o one or an l one process and making maybe competitively a lesser investment, but in the in their scheme of things, I mean, it's their business. It's literally their baby. It matters to them more than anything right now. I want to make that as painless for them as possible. Now with that being said, as far as AI is concerned, I do have some reservations because I just don't think I know enough about it yet. I feel like I need to learn more to understand what amount of data is being, you know, is is is completely confidential. What do I need to redact? I have clients who I represent who are in in tech, as I mentioned. They would hate for me to put their, you know, their their information about their technical solutions onto an AI platform that they might directly compete with, and there's no way I'm ever going to do that. At the same time, you know, for for a list of documents to be compiled by AI, that's something that's really easy to do. But I wanna be really, really mindful about what names I'm putting out there. Know? Am I am I naming my client by by their name, or am I just calling it company? Am I naming my am I naming their technologies? Am I name am I putting in a lot of information in terms of, what their, what what their underlying solution might look like? Probably not. And, I mean, I my concerns are surrounding the fact that I don't want this information kinda get getting mixed up. The worst case scenario for me would be that I put in client a's information and it churns out client b's draft or or somehow mixes client a and b's technology and kind of gives me, like, a mix of it. I just that's that's a little scary to me, and I know that that may make me a little bit archaic in the way I practice. But I'm happy to be educated. I'm happy to be I've I've I was just a national. I was speaking to as many people as I could. There were so many vendors on the floor. And if I if I'm given the comfort of being able to use AI in a way that I can maintain my clients' confidentiality and remain ethical 100%, I would do it happily.

James Pittman: That's all good advice that you've given. And I it's nothing wrong with sort of being cautious about things, but I hope that we'll have a chance to talk more as as the as the technology develops because the number of solutions is and the number of applications is really just, you know, growing so so quickly. We're really in a boom time. And there's a lot of great great tools that are coming out to dramatically speed up producing work and, you know, managing client communications using AI. You know, we in in, we've incorporated the AI, you know, writing assistant that allows you to change your tone and edit and translate and polish your writing and make it clearer so you can communicate perfectly every time. But, but I'd love to to talk more about it. I I wanna ask you another question, though. Another area that I'm very interested in hearing practitioners talk about is how to deliver an exceptional client experience and gain the client's trust. So what are your, let's say, three best tips for, you know, creating an exceptional client experience and gaining trust?

Divij Kishore: Number one, responsiveness. So this is something that I was trained on from the day I first stepped out of law school, probably even during law school. The way I was essentially raised in the practice of law was that if if I get an email, I want to try to respond to it within a hundred and twenty seconds of getting that email. Even if it's a placeholder email saying, I've got your email. I'm going to respond to you. I wanna do it within that first hundred and twenty seconds. And I will acknowledge it's not always practical, and you need support to be able to do that. But responsiveness is a big part of it. The other is delivering on the promised time frames. So a lot of times, clients will come and say, you know, I need this done in two weeks. And there's a tendency to say, I'm I'm going to get it done in a week for you, and I absolutely mean it when I say it. But I know this about myself. I tend to want to deliver best in class service, but it's impractical for me to deliver that for every single client. So it's up to me to manage the client expectation and say, you know, I if if it'll take me three weeks. If I can get it done in one and the client gets happy, I'm much happier with a client who have overpromised underpromised and overdelivered to rather than overpromised and not delivered to. That's that's really bad outcome for me. And and then I think the third piece that I'd really like to focus on is the quality of writing that my office does. I know that there's, as an example, cover letters and an e b five petition. Right? USCIS is likely not reading them in a lot of detail, But I do put in the effort of breaking down the criteria for them and and listing the various elements of the requirements and the evidence that goes to each requirement. And I do that for each case whether I'm doing an e b five or an o one, which is very, very evidence heavy. Because at the as I said, at the end of the day, I want to make the adjudicator's life as easy as possible. I want to make it as easy as I possibly can to get them to issue an approval. And I will say that I've seen some success in that. The idea is to minimize and mitigate as far as possible the chances of a request of further evidence being issued, and and we do see some success in in that happening.

James Pittman: All great yeah. All all great advice. Be responsive, over deliver, and quality of service. All all three key elements of of gaining your clients' trust. Well, Divij, it's been great having you, and I really appreciate the discussion. You know? And the the investor visa area is such an interesting area, and I know we're gonna have you back to as we see how things develop as we move through the move through the administration's four years in office and see what what becomes of the of the gold card and, you know, whether whether the EB five and and other questions. So do you have is there anything else you wanted to touch on?

Divij Kishore: Well, I mean, I I guess I would just want to kind of reiterate the fact that

James Pittman: Yeah. Yeah.

Divij Kishore: While the go gold card program is seemingly on the horizon, for now, the focus needs to remain on the e b five program. Mhmm. And I would much rather that as practitioners, we remain focused on what can we do to make the e v five program work better for our clients, if anything. I I have conversations with colleagues and and other practitioners and potential clients and existing clients pretty much on the on the daily to talk about what can we do to deliver a better experience, what can we do to improve chances, what risk profile is not acceptable for our clients. At what point will we say that we don't want to you you know, you might want to do this, and this might be a great business opportunity for you. But from an immigration law standpoint, from an EB5 standpoint, it's I don't think it's a good decision, and we need to be able to say that to our clients. At the same time, as I've said multiple times, as the immigration attorney on the on the investment, my role is to quarterback it. So my role, therefore, is to ensure that I'm building relationships all the time with different stakeholders within the e b five space, people who have experienced it, who have years of knowledge behind them, and who we can really rely on with our clients to to essentially give them the best advice when they really need it.

James Pittman: Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Point well taken. And the EB five program, you know, has been evolving over the years, and it's something which, you know, has, I think, served served well, with you know, there's been some few controversies here and there, but on the whole has served well. So, I agree with you. I mean, it's it's it it has a firm foundation, in in the benefits that it's provided, right, for The United States. So probably won't probably won't go away, you know, even if even if a gold card ever happens. But we'll we'll see, and we'll we'll discuss again. Welcome to the Thanks. What's that, Divij?

Divij Kishore: I said, who knows? We might be having a very different conversation in twelve months. James Pittman: Yeah. We that's for sure. I mean, these the the it's nothing if not fast changing. Right? Absolutely. Alright. Well, before we go, I do wanna mention to our audience that, to please, if you haven't heard about Kaleidoscope, I wanna tell you about it. Kaleidoscope is the InfiniPay, customer event, and that is taking place September 2 through September 4, in Austin, Texas at the Fairmount. So please, if you are interested, it is an excellent place to learn about management management and growth strategies for your firm, technology for your firm, and we would love to have you join us. If you are an immigration lawyer, your registration can be free. You can use the promo code, and the promo code will be in the accompanying post with this podcast for immigration lawyers. So thanks very much, and until next time, stay well.