Senator Mike Rounds: Feds Right in Exercising Oversight of EB-5 in South Dakota

PIERRE, S.D. (AP) — South Dakota U.S. Senator Mike Rounds says the U.S. government is right in exercising its oversight over an investment-for-visa program pioneered in South Dakota when he was governor.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has notified the state it intends to terminate South Dakota's participation in the EB-5 visa program for recruiting wealthy foreign investors for projects in exchange for green cards.

Rounds says he hasn't seen the notice, but he believes the concerns in the report occurred when the program was run by a private firm or after he left the governor's office in 2011.

Rounds, a Republican, says the program created thousands of jobs in South Dakota. But, he says he hasn't taken a position on if Congress should renew the program when it expires in December.

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