USCIS held a EB-5 Immigrant Investor program stakeholder
teleconference today April 22, 2015 to discuss the recent EB-5
industry news including the hottest topic of EB-5 investors establishing a priority date. USCIS and EB-5
division currently has 101 employees on staff including 53 adjudicators. They
hope to reach the 121 employees target level for Fy2015 and stated there is a
good chance to go above their target level.
In March 2015, USCIS received 680 I-526 petitions and completed
(approved or denied) over 1,100 I-526 petitions. This is the first time USCIS
has completed more I-526 petitions than received.
We look forward to the release of the policy memo from USCIS. The next EB-5 stakeholder will be on June 4th, 2015. The stakeholder engagement will feature EB-5 job creation and will include discussion with USCIS economists.
USCIS explained they have started terminating regional
centers who fail to promote economic growth in their designated areas. They
have also terminated EB-5 regional centers that do not complete the annual
I-924A form. The two hot topics of the teleconference call include EB-5
retrogression and loan proceeds as qualified capital from EB-5 investors. There
were many questions about situations on whether loans issued to EB-5 investors
would qualify as lawful source of funds in which USCIS employees did not address. The
USCIS is currently drafting a policy memo now and hope to publish soon to
further address indebtedness, EB-5 retrogression issues and additional topics. Other topics of
discussion were long I-526 petition processing times with projects waiting
18-20 months without any response from USCIS, the ability of direct EB-5 projects
to use bridge financing and approval of I-924 exemplars.
We look forward to the release of the policy memo from USCIS. The next EB-5 stakeholder will be on June 4th, 2015. The stakeholder engagement will feature EB-5 job creation and will include discussion with USCIS economists.
