The United States Department of State releases an annual Report of the Visa Office, in which it shares the number and type of immigrant and non immigrant visas issued abroad, as well as adjustments of status in the US, classified by country. One category of particular interest is the number of E-2 applicants from Grenada. The 2019 report shows that the growth in Grenada E-2 applicants was 39, nearly 4 times the number from 2018. Grenada has long enjoyed E-2 treaty status with the United States, however Grenada nationals have seldom used the program. The reason why we are seeing such a large growth in the number of E-2 applicants from Grenada is because the Grenada citizenship by investment program, when paired with an E-2 investment in the United States, provides Indian, Chinese, and Vietnamese (whose countries are not E-2 treaty countries) a faster and less expensive route to get their families to the US when compared with EB-5. With nationals of these countries facing long wait times for EB-5, many are opting to use the Grenada E-2 option as either an alternative, or a “bridge” to getting their EB-5 green card. With the former option, the applicant would first make an EB-5 investment at the $900,000 level, and then concurrently make an investment in a Grenada CBI project, which start at $220,000, followed by an E-2 investment, which vary in investment amounts. Through this route, the applicant and his/her family can get themselves to the US within about 6 months. What’s more, the E-2 visa offers many of the same perks as an EB-5 green card, most notably free primary school education at US public schools, as well as in state tuition at most state universities. Both the E-2 investment and the Grenada investment offer attractive ROIs and the return of the investor’s capital after a few years. For any applicant seeking to skirt the EB-5 “visa queue”, or is just looking for a lower cost alternative to EB-5, then Grenada E-2 may be a good choice.
Click the links below to see the data on the US Department of State website:
2018: https://travel.state.gov/content/dam/visas/Statistics/AnnualReports/FY2018AnnualReport/FY18AnnualReport%20-%20TableXVII.pdf
2019: https://travel.state.gov/content/dam/visas/Statistics/AnnualReports/FY2019AnnualReport/FY19AnnualReport-TableXVII.pdf
