P-1A Visa Adjudications Remain Inconsistent for Professional Video Gamers

As we noted in January 2014, the USCIS has begun to recognize professional video game players as athletes eligible for P-1A visas, which are reserved for "internationally recognized athletes."  Even so, there has been a lack of consistency in the adjudication of such visas for professional gamers, probably because of the relative novelty of professional gaming and the usage of the P-1 category for such athletes.

The difficulties faced by professional gamers in acquiring P-1 visas was brought into relief last October when Sweden's William "Leffen" Hjelte was denied the visa despite his renown as a top-level gamer.  While Hjelte ultimately procured a P-1 visa in this year, the gaming industry has been vocal in demanding more consistent adjudications of P-1 visas, even starting a petition on Whitehouse.gov that has amassed over 117,677 signatures. The petition states that a wider range of "eSports should be considered 'legitimate' sports in order to let players come and compete in the United States."

While one might expect the availability of P-1 visas for gamers to increase over time as government officials become more acclimatized to this unique form of professional sports, such an increase is far from obvious given recent political developments.  Many immigration lawyers fear that the recent election of Donald Trump as President will harken an increasing anti-immigrant sentiment among adjudicators in the country's immigration agencies, including within the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of State.  If that proves to be the case, one can expect a higher level of scrutiny being applied to already stringent requirements for P-1 athletes.

EB-5 Visa Used to Fund Sports Stadium

Under the EB-5 Immigrant Investor program, entrepreneurs (and their spouses and unmarried children under 21) are eligible to apply for a green card if they make a $1 million investment in a commercial enterprise in the United States.  If the investment is in a trouble economic area, the investment threshold is reduced to $500,000.

The investment can occur in a single business, or it can be pooled with others as part of a USCIS-sanctioned "Regional Center" program.  The majority of EB-5 visas are issued in connection with a Regional Center investment.

Traditionally EB-5 Regional Centers comprised of large-scale infrastructure projects, often in rural or low-income urban areas.  Such projects have included shopping malls, ski resorts, and condo complexes.   The largest EB-5 regional center, for a Vermont ski resort, has recently been taken to task by the Securities and Exchange Commission for fraud.

 For the first time ever, a sports stadium will be built using the EB-5 Regional Center mechanism:

Mr. da Silva, the majority owner of Orlando City of Major League Soccer, is asking investors from Brazil, China and elsewhere to pay $500,000 each for a stake in the stadium he is building near downtown Orlando. In return, the foreign investors receive annual dividends, two season tickets and something even more valuable: a green card that allows them, their spouses and sometimes even their children to live and work in the United States.

...

 Mr. da Silva, though, is building a $156 million stadium, not a high-rise building or a shopping mall, and he is marketing to foreigners not because lending is tight, but because lawmakers in Florida would not provide subsidies for the stadium in the Parramore neighborhood of Orlando.

Traditionally sports stadiums have been financed through public-private partnerships that often fail to produce the promised revenue for government funders.  It remains to be seen whether Orlando City's EB-5 investors will enjoy any profits from their investments.