Newsweek: "Trump admin proposes major crackdown on visa program"

Sheridan Green

7/2/2026

Newsweek yesterday published an article with the blatantly misleading headline above. Here it is, The actual story is much more boring.

This is the first line of the article:

The Trump administration has unveiled a sweeping proposal to overhaul the EB-5 immigrant investor visa program, tightening oversight, expanding anti-fraud enforcement powers, and eliminating some longstanding pathways used by foreign investors to obtain United States green cards through investment.

(Here are the proposed new rules).

The changes are to the EB5 program, but they appear to be neither "sweeping" nor an "overhaul," and the only "longstanding pathway" was a little-used provision for taking over "troubled businesses" and getting a break on the usual employment-creation requirement.

The first clue that something is misleading about the Newsweek article is a statement that the new regulations will implement a 2022 Act of Congress. The law is the EB5 Reform and Integrity Act of 2022. Obviously, that is from when Joe Biden was president. The new regulations mostly implement that legislation and don't have any obvious tie-in with Trump's overall immigration agenda.

First, DHS wants to codify some longstanding rules about how capital and investments need to be structured from BIA case law including Matter of Izummi and Matter of Soffici. These are decisions from the Clinton administration. They've been the law for nearly 30 years and are being added to the regs for "ease of reference." Hardly a "sweeping" change.

There appear to be some clarifications for dealing with fraud in the EB-5 program based on the fact that USCIS fraud guidance currently relates only to individuals and needs to take into consideration the effects of fraud by entities.

The new regs will also include some new guidance on how to calculate indirect employment creation and how to define a "high employment area" and a "high unemployment area."

DHS also wants to set the investment amount for an area of high employment at 1.4 million.