Borrowed funds can qualify where the investor is personally and primarily liable and the debt is secured by assets he owns, provided the assets of the new commercial enterprise are not pledged. A mortgage over his own home can meet that description.
Who bears the risk is the whole question
EB-5 asks whether the investor's own capital is at risk. Indebtedness does not automatically fail that test; it fails when the risk has been shifted onto the enterprise or onto someone else. Terrence borrowing against his home keeps the risk with him, so long as the loan documents make him personally and primarily liable and nothing in them charges the enterprise's assets.
Around that sit the fixed statutory conditions: qualifying capital of US$1,050,000, or US$800,000 in a targeted employment area or infrastructure project under the 2022 Reform and Integrity Act, with an adjustment beginning January 1, 2027 and terms to be re-verified; at least ten full-time positions for qualifying U.S. workers; a lawful source and path for all funds, borrowed and unborrowed alike; and the investor engaged in management or policy formulation. The loan's own source is examined as well, so the bank's lending decision and the property's ownership history belong in the file.