Select Highlights of the Interview with Nagaraju from India
EB-5 Investor in the EB5AN Rocky River Rural EB-5 Project
- “The EB5AN team was just working day and night with us and they were able to give us documentations. And then, to and fro was too fast and too smooth and we didn’t really had to follow up or do anything. It was just seamless for us.”
- “Since we are from India, there is a lot of homework that we have to do in terms of medicals, in terms of funds, in terms of organizing all the documents.. […] But once we have made sure all the information is available, things took off very fast”
- “Interestingly, Kolter Group has already done a good job in Twin Lakes, so that was our template for us. And then, when we started to compare Twin Lakes with Rocky River, we understood that both projects are similar.”
Full Interview with Nagaraju from India
EB-5 Investor in the EB5AN Rocky River Rural EB-5 Project
Transcript of the Interview with Nagaraju from India
Exploring My U.S. Visa Options
All right. So to start with, Naga, would you mind introducing yourself and sharing a little bit about your background and your journey to the United States and what kind of led you to explore an EB-5 investment for you and your family?
Sure, Sam. Thank you for giving me this opportunity. My name is Nagaraju Dota, and I’m from India. I moved to the U.S. in 2016, and since 2016, I was on a H-1B visa. So as everybody … I understand that there is a lot of backlog for EB-2 and EB-3. I’m in EB-2, but since it’s taking so long time, I decided to go through EB-5 route.
Finding the Right Immigration Attorney
And as you were exploring EB-5, did you consider any other routes as well, or was EB-5 the main one that you focused on?
Yeah. I think during COVID times, I have started to look for options. I have tried the different ways to understand the opportunities that we have, especially since we are from India and since I am born in India. So there were a couple of things that we were exploring. And of all the options, I see EB-5 is much more promising. That’s what I would say.
Discovering EB5AN and the Kolter Group
So once you’d decided that you wanted to pursue an EB-5 investment, can you tell us a little bit about your experience finding an immigration attorney to help you through the process? How many attorneys did you consider, interview? Who did you end up hiring and why? And what was that initial process like of “I want to do EB-5, but I’m going to need to hire an attorney to help me document my funds“?
Yeah. I would say it was a long journey for us. We had to first understand what EB-5 is all about and how do we even qualify for EB-5. And once we get the criteria, then how should we even identify the projects, and how should we even identify the attorneys, related attorneys? So it took us some time to really understand the whole things of options and stuff like that. So we did actually do a lot of research. We had at least two to three months of time to really understand all those nuances.
Finally, when we decided that we have to go with an attorney, the first thing that we wanted to do is someone who is from India and has some background with like even from the cultural standpoint and even from an understanding of the struggle that we go through, especially in H-1Bs and stuff like that. So we wanted to closely align to even the immigration attorneys who have that experience. And luckily, when we found the attorney, we just sticked with the attorney, and then we just moved on with the attorney.
Understanding the Rocky River Project and Rural Investment
And which attorney did you end up hiring to help you?
Yeah. So we went with Anahita George. She’s also from India, but she’s now in U.S. She’s a citizen now. So she knows how the journey is and how [inaudible 00:04:53] journey. So she was able to help us with the questions we had, and we had a lot of questions. And Anahita helped us navigate through all those questions and helped us clarify. And once she gave us clarity, we just went with her advice. So it’s like she is the guiding for us. She has become more of how we have to go and what we have to choose, how we should evaluate. So a lot of things we have discussed, and she was very helpful with all those responses.
Working with the EB5AN Team
And just approximately, how many attorneys did you speak with in total before you decided to hire Anahita to help you?
I would say we did speak with three to four attorneys before we finalized on Anahita George.
And so, having just gone through that process, what suggestions or advice would you have for other similar Indian EB-5 investors in terms of picking an attorney to help with their application?
Sure. I would suggest there is a lot of homework to do. It’s not about just the source of funds or not only just an individual preparation. There’s a lot of documentation and a lot of homework to decide on which project and which attorney to choose and put everything in order. Make sure those things are available. Especially when the immigration attorney has an audit question, you should be able to respond to it fast.
So it’s all, I would say, like a planning kind of a thing. You have to plan it so that things would … Even if something is not there or not available, there are people to help you, like immigration attorneys and even EB-5 centers like yours.
So there’s a lot of to-and-fro that happens. But once you start the journey and once the documents are there, then it should be fast.
Now that we’ve spoken about the immigration attorney component of the application, let’s change gears and discuss a little bit more about the regional center and about the project. So can you share a little bit of information about, from your perspective, what made you decide to go with EB5AN and Kolter as the developer of the Rocky River project once you’d had a chance to do some diligence on different projects and regional centers? Maybe to start with, let’s talk about the regional centers first, and then we can talk about the projects.
Sure. So when we started to understand the importance of EB-5 centers, we tried to understand different projects under each EB-5 centers that they are executing. Once we went through a lot of screening … So once we were confident that EB5AN has much more of history and repayments, identifying the projects under EB5AN … So we did actually look at a lot of investors’ profiles—why did they choose EB5AN—and also the documentations that they have provided. So these are the important things that actually made us to narrow down on EB5AN.
And just in terms of the regional centers, like the attorneys, how many different regional centers did you chat with, and what were some of the differences that you saw across the different regional center companies in terms of documentation, ability to access information, answering questions? How did that differ from your perspective?
Yeah. So we actually tried to see an EB-5 center which is close to us initially. But then the projects that they are undertaking were not so … I would say it didn’t provide as much confidence for us. So it was more of the documentation that was not so helpful for us to really make a decision. So all these factors really played a part in our choices.
And when we looked at EB5AN, they have much more rigor. There is much more of information that they were able to share faster. And this is also important for us to make a decision faster, because everything is ready. And EB5AN seems to be more closer to what we are looking for.
So shifting now to the specific project, when you were considering potential projects for investment—rural projects, non-rural projects—what were some of the most important things for you when you compared the Rocky River project versus some of the other projects that you considered?
Sure. So once we decided on EB5AN, the second we had decided is on the group that is executing these projects. So we found Kolter Group with good record. So we narrowed in on the Kolter Group. And within The Kolter Group, we tried to see different projects. Interestingly, Kolter Group has already done a good job in Twin Lakes, so that was our template for us. And then when we started to compare Twin Lakes with Rocky River, we understood that both projects are similar. It’s just a new project that’s coming up. So we decided to choose Rocky River because it’s the same template as Twin Lakes.
And how important was the fact that the Rocky River project, like Twin Lakes, is in a rural TEA area? How important was investing in a rural project for you when you made the decision about a project?
So once we decided on projects, I think the other important thing is to choose between urban, TEA, and rural. Out of all these three, we thought rural would be more ideal suited for us, because we have a specific criteria that we wanted to meet. And once we had narrowed down on all this, I think Rocky River was more aligned to what our requirement and needs are, and it perfectly suited us. I think it is the right time that we started on Rocky River project.
