The investment may not be ‘Marginal’

This requirement provides that the investment must not be for the sole purpose of providing a living for the applicant and his immediate family. It is therefore important to be able to demonstrate that the investment will create jobs for U.S. workers.

    Often it is self evident that a particular business needs employees.

In the situation where an existing business is purchased this requirement should be relatively easy to meet. Employment records of existing employees need only be produced.

In start-up situations the ‘non marginality’ factor may be harder to document.

There are two ways of approaching this issue:

• Are employees, beyond the investor and his immediate family, required to operate the business of the type in question. For example to operate a restaurant or automobile car wash would normally by necessity require some employees.

•  Can reliable projections-normally through a well-documented business plan-demonstrate that the business will employ US citizen employees within a reasonable period of time.

  In short, the rules require that the application show that US employees are already being employed by the enterprise or that they will be employed within a reasonable period of time, with five years being the outer limit.