Hold on S. 2415

Floor Speech

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Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I want to inform my colleagues that I have placed a hold on S. 2415, the EB-5 Integrity Act of 2015. I have been working for years to reform the EB-5 immigrant investor program, which is run by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, and have introduced legislation with Senator Leahy to overhaul the program.

Our bill, S. 1501, is a comprehensive approach to dealing with the fraud, abuse, and national security vulnerabilities. Our bill also restores the program back to its original intent to ensure that rural and high unemployment areas have access to this source of capital.

S. 2415 is a bill that is modeled almost identically after S. 1501; yet it is weaker and leaves behind many provisions that would in fact bring integrity back into the program. 2415 up by unanimous consent and have placed a hold on the bill because I hoped we could consider more effective measures to root out fraud and abuse and create real jobs and do it in a comprehensive manner that ensures the program is able to work for every part of the country for years to come.

As I stated previously on this floor, the failure to include needed reforms last year means the program continues to pose risks to the homeland. I am not so sure reforms are possible anymore. It may be time to do away with it completely.

Nevertheless, if we pass legislation to extend the EB-5 program beyond this fiscal year, I hope to work with my colleagues to achieve true reform.

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