Bill Text: NJ A358 | 2018-2019 | Regular Session | Introduced
Bill Title: Concerns designation of areas of high unemployment for allocation of certain visas.
Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Democrat 1-0)
Status: (Introduced - Dead) 2018-01-09 - Introduced, Referred to Assembly Labor Committee [A358 Detail]
Download: New_Jersey-2018-A358-Introduced.html
STATE OF NEW JERSEY
218th LEGISLATURE
PRE-FILED FOR INTRODUCTION IN THE 2018 SESSION
Sponsored by:
Assemblyman NICHOLAS CHIARAVALLOTI
District 31 (Hudson)
SYNOPSIS
Concerns designation of areas of high unemployment for allocation of certain visas.
CURRENT VERSION OF TEXT
Introduced Pending Technical Review by Legislative Counsel.
An Act concerning areas of high unemployment for employment-based immigration visa allocation and supplementing Title 34 of the Revised Statutes.
Be It Enacted by the Senate and General Assembly of the State of New Jersey:
1. The Department of Labor and Workforce Development shall promulgate regulations establishing standards for the designation of high unemployment targeted employment areas for employment-based immigration visa allocation pursuant to 8 U.S.C. s.1153(b)(5). The regulations shall be in accordance with any applicable federal guidelines, and shall ensure that any area designated a high unemployment targeted employment area is located entirely within a single ZIP Code.
2. This act shall take effect immediately.
STATEMENT
This bill requires the Department of Labor and Workforce Development to promulgate regulations establishing standards for the designation of areas of high unemployment for employment-based immigration visa allocation pursuant to the federal EB-5 Immigrant Investor Program. The EB-5 Immigrant Investor Program allows foreign investors to obtain permanent residency status based on capital investments in the United States. The required amount of the capital investment is decreased from $1,000,000 to $500,000 if the investment is made in certain areas, including an area that the State has determined to be an area of high unemployment.
Federal regulations allow the State to designate particular geographic or political subdivisions located in municipalities with populations of 20,000 or more as areas of high unemployment, provided they have at least 150 percent of the national average unemployment rate. These designations are currently made by the Local Area Unemployment Statistics Section within the Division of Labor Market and Demographic Research of the Department of Labor and Workforce Development, but the department has not issued any rules or regulations that provide how these designations are made. This bill requires the department to establish standards for the designation of areas of high unemployment for employment-based immigration visa allocation in accordance with any applicable federal guidelines.
Additionally, this bill requires the regulations to ensure that any area designated as an area of high unemployment is located entirely within a single ZIP Code. In the past, many areas designated as areas of high unemployment have not reflected any geographical or political boundaries. Instead, the areas are a series of census tracts with high unemployment strung together, often chosen to avoid neighboring areas with low unemployment. As a result, investors can receive visas for investments in projects located in relatively affluent areas, based on the unemployment rates of census tracts that are contiguous, but not located near the project site. This bill attempts to correct this problem by requiring the entire area of high unemployment to be located in the same ZIP Code.
