Buck Johns Marketing EB-5 Investors Elsewhere

The City Council Tuesday night will continue debating whether to take U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to court, fighting the agency's decision to terminate Victorville's visa investor program and cut off funds the city was counting on to finance its wastewater treatment plant.

Meanwhile, Inland Energy President William Buck Johns, hired by the city in 2009 to line up $25 million in loans from aspiring immigrants, has started marketing Victorville's investors to other EB-5 regional centers.

“We did meet with Buck (Johns) and there is talk that some of their investors would reapply under our program,” Henry Liebman, founder of EB-5 program American Life Inc. in Washington, said via email Monday.

Johns didn’t respond to a request for comment, and Mayor Ryan McEachron said the move was news to him.

USCIS approved Victorville's EB-5 regional center in July 2009, allowing the city and its marketing partners such as Inland to solicit foreign citizens willing to loan $500,000 toward qualified projects in exchange for temporary green cards. But Victorville's program became the first in the nation to be terminated in October, with USCIS citing concerns over whether it satisfied the agency’s strict requirement for job creation.

The city had formally accepted 17 loans through the program for a total of $8.5 million, though Economic Development Director Keith Metzler said only $7.5 million was transferred to Victorville before the termination. The other $1 million stayed in an escrow account managed by Johns, Metzler said.

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