Select Highlights of the Interview with Ido from Israel EB-5 Investor in the EB5AN Bay Creek Rural EB-5 Project
- “Transparency, even just without even speaking with [EB5AN], we went on your website. We saw a list of projects. Each one of the projects had a lot of detail to it that was openly available—no NDAs or anything. And then once we started the dialogue with you, we saw that you very freely provide us with answers, provide us with information that we need.”
- “We really liked the shortened timeline for processing [that rural projects offer]. Then once we found a project to our liking, we said, “Okay, we have to go with rural, because we really do want to get the Green Card as soon as we can.” That’s when we landed on Bay Creek.”
- “One more thing that we liked about Bay Creek is that it’s a residential project, because a lot of the other projects, we felt that if you’re investing in a commercial project, you have to be somewhat familiar with other aspects of the business. And residential is something that we believe is safer in terms of demand.”
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Full Interview with Ido from Israel EB-5 Investor in the EB5AN Bay Creek Rural EB-5 Project
Transcript of the Interview with Ido from Israel
My Background and Why I Chose EB-5
Hi, everyone. I’m Sam Silverman, managing partner of EB5AN. Thank you for taking time to join us for today’s webinar. Today we’re speaking with an EB-5 investor, Ido, from Israel, who recently invested in our Bay Creek rural EB-5 senior loan project. So thank you for taking some time this afternoon to join us for today’s webinar interview, Ido. To start with, could you introduce yourself and share a little bit about your background and experience and what your interest was in pursuing EB-5?
Yeah, okay. Sure thing, Sam. I’m happy to be here. So my name is Ido. As you mentioned, I’m from Tel Aviv, Israel. I’m 48 years old, father of three, married. And I’ve been living in Israel for my entire life, excepting for a couple of periods, rather short periods of time, where I was living elsewhere. One of those periods actually was in the U.S. I was an exchange student in Philly previously. So I had a bit of an earlier experience of living there, so I have an idea of what to expect. So that’s pretty much the basic background.
Choosing an Immigration Attorney and Source of Funds Documentation
Okay, perfect. And so having been primarily based in Israel with a little bit of time in the U.S. over the years, what made you interested in returning and pursuing Green Card status in the U.S. after having been in Israel for most of your life?
Right. So it’s been kind of building up to it over the years. So I’ve always been fond of the U.S., as has my family, and we’ve visited as tourists now and then. Also, in Israel, we’ve all been exposed to American culture since childhood—I mean American media. Most of Israel is an English-speaking country, even though it’s not the primary language here, and grew up with American culture, kind of immersed in it.
But anyway, it kind of built up to it. It’s life circumstances. It’s the circumstances of Israel as a country. Most people are pretty well aware of what’s been going on over the last few years here, the war. And even though right now it’s kind of peaceful, there are a lot of considerations to take into account. And I have young kids, as I mentioned, the oldest one being eight years old and the youngest one being three years old. So I have to think of their future, and I’m trying to mitigate uncertainty and some other risk factors.
And also in terms of business potential, in terms of the ability to make a living and the quality of life and the cost of living and all of those things, they came into sync—the stars aligned. And a while ago, we decided that we’re going to do it. We’re going to try to relocate. Initially, we weren’t sure that we want to be residents necessarily, but we ended up settling on this specific plan.
Final Thoughts
Got it. Okay, that makes total sense. Definitely a very similar thought exercise that many other clients, particularly recently a lot from Canada, who are eligible, and it’s easy to go for the E-2. All right, so at that point, you’d explored E-2. You decided that EB-5 was going to be the better long-term fit given the flexibility, employment options, and family stability. What was your experience once you’d made up your mind to do EB-5 in terms of starting the process, looking, interviewing potential immigration attorneys? Yeah, tell us a little bit about what that immigration attorney interview and selection process looked like once you decided that EB-5 was going to be the best option.
All right. Yeah. As I was doing my initial research and trying to figure out how to approach EB-5, I realized that, of course, an important early step in the process should be to pick an attorney who is experienced with it. And actually, since I was already in touch with some attorneys, since I had already researched and tried to seek attorneys around the E-2 visa application that I was exploring, I defaulted to an attorney who was already helping me with my E-2. And also, I was in touch with a couple of other attorneys.
I was actually simultaneously approaching regional centers and attorneys. So each regional center is kind of like part of the intake or onboarding experience, some of them at least. So they also involved their own attorneys or third-party attorneys in the pitch process. And then I had meetings with several of those attorneys who were introduced to me by other regional centers, not necessarily to represent me, but just to wrap my head around various types of projects and regional centers. And I kept going back to my E-2 attorney, who actually doesn’t specialize necessarily in a single type of visa but in several types of visas.
At some point realizing that that specific attorney, even though I liked him a lot, he didn’t necessarily have a lot of experience with EB-5, didn’t necessarily have a lot of experience with the specific challenges that may be related to my life circumstances, to all the things that I was looking for in a project, in a regional center, and ended up trying to find another lawyer.
So then I took a long look at the internet, and I found an association by the name of AIIA, which is an association of EB-5 investors. You might be familiar with them. And they have a very short list actually of attorneys that they recommend, something like six.
And then I also, at the time, was already in touch with three of the top nationwide regional centers, present company included. So I also sought recommendations from you guys and from a couple of your competitors.
And then once I got a hit, somebody that was both on the AIA list and recommended by yourselves—which was Dennis Tristani—that’s when I kind of homed in on him and his firm.
Got it. Okay, that makes total sense. Definitely a very similar thought exercise that many other clients, particularly recently a lot from Canada, who are eligible, and it’s easy to go for the E-2. All right, so at that point, you’d explored E-2. You decided that EB-5 was going to be the better long-term fit given the flexibility, employment options, and family stability. What was your experience once you’d made up your mind to do EB-5 in terms of starting the process, looking, interviewing potential immigration attorneys? Yeah, tell us a little bit about what that immigration attorney interview and selection process looked like once you decided that EB-5 was going to be the best option.
All right. Yeah. As I was doing my initial research and trying to figure out how to approach EB-5, I realized that, of course, an important early step in the process should be to pick an attorney who is experienced with it. And actually, since I was already in touch with some attorneys, since I had already researched and tried to seek attorneys around the E-2 visa application that I was exploring, I defaulted to an attorney who was already helping me with my E-2. And also, I was in touch with a couple of other attorneys.
I was actually simultaneously approaching regional centers and attorneys. So each regional center is kind of like part of the intake or onboarding experience, some of them at least. So they also involved their own attorneys or third-party attorneys in the pitch process. And then I had meetings with several of those attorneys who were introduced to me by other regional centers, not necessarily to represent me, but just to wrap my head around various types of projects and regional centers. And I kept going back to my E-2 attorney, who actually doesn’t specialize necessarily in a single type of visa but in several types of visas.
At some point realizing that that specific attorney, even though I liked him a lot, he didn’t necessarily have a lot of experience with EB-5, didn’t necessarily have a lot of experience with the specific challenges that may be related to my life circumstances, to all the things that I was looking for in a project, in a regional center, and ended up trying to find another lawyer.
So then I took a long look at the internet, and I found an association by the name of AIIA, which is an association of EB-5 investors. You might be familiar with them. And they have a very short list actually of attorneys that they recommend, something like six.
And then I also, at the time, was already in touch with three of the top nationwide regional centers, present company included. So I also sought recommendations from you guys and from a couple of your competitors.
And then once I got a hit, somebody that was both on the AIA list and recommended by yourselves—which was Dennis Tristani—that’s when I kind of homed in on him and his firm.
