(Source: Bernard Wolfsdorf) On October 22, 2015, Mr. Oppenheim released critical
information at the IIUSA conference in Dallas, Texas regarding the EB-5
program, including predictions as to the Chinese EB-5 waiting line. In May 2015, the DOS announced the establishment of a
cut-off date for the Chinese EB-5 category of May 2013, establishing a waiting
line of 2 years for persons chargeable to the China quota. Remarkably, in the
seven months from May 2015 to November 2015, the waiting line has not
retrogressed once and has moved forward at the rate of about one month in every
one of the 7 past visa bulletins. Fortunately this trend continues for the
entire first quarter of Fiscal Year 2016 (October, 2015-December 2015), and
slows down only slightly in the second quarter of FY 2016 (January 2016-March
2016).
It may be noted Mr. Oppenheim has refrained from making
predictions for the March 2016 EB-5 Visa Bulletin. This is despite the
unprecedented surge in filings leading up to the critical September 30, 2015
sunset date when the program was extended for 10 weeks to December 11, 2015 as
part of a continuing resolution.
Highlights of Mr. Oppenheim’s comments are:
- The ACTUAL Final Action Date or cut-off date for China EB-5 for December 2015 will be December 15, 2013.
- The ESTIMATED Final Action Date for China EB-5 for January 2016 will be January 8, 2014.
- The ESTIMATED Final Action Date for China EB-5 for February 2016 will be January 15, 2014. Note for February the forward movement is only one week per month because of the workload implications associated with the start of the Chinese New Year, as opposed to January 2016 which represented a forward movement of three weeks. The rest of the world remains current with no limit on the processing of cases ready for final action.
- Most important Mr. Oppenheim explained that based on current demand patterns, for September 2016, the last day of the FY 2016 year, would be a best case scenario for a China EB-5 Final Action Date would be May 2014 and the worst case would be April 2014. This of course could be April 1, 2014, and that date could be “frozen” at April 1, 2014 at any point during the summer months to hold visa issuances within the FY-2016 annual limit.
- Reparably this means the waiting line for applicants chargeable to the China quota would continue to be about two years for the next few months and would only increase to about 2 1/2 years by the end of the 2016 Fiscal Year on September 30, 2016. Since most cases take at least 18 months to be scheduled for final interviews abroad this means that for FY 2016 the additional waiting line caused by the China quota is a mere 6-12 months, hardly the catastrophe anticipated by the surge in EB-5 filings.(USCIS IPO average processing times) are presently 13.8 months and scheduling an interview in Guangzhou takes another 4-5 months)
- On October 1, 2015, the FY 2016 limit of 9,940 EB-5 visas became available for use under the worldwide distribution.
- For FY 2015 ending September 30, 2015, 9,764 EB-5 visas were issued of which 8,157 or 83.5% were from China with the rest of the world providing only 16.5% of applicants.
- Vietnam provided the 2nd largest number of immigrants with 280 immigrants representing 2.87% of the total. Third was Taiwan with 139 or 1.4%. South Korea was fourth with 116 or 1.2%. In 5th place was India with 111 or 1.1%. India joined the top 5 countries for the first time. It may also be noted that for the first time Asia provided all of the top 5 countries. In prior years Mexico (FY2014-129 visas) and Venezuela (FY2013-92 visas) were in the top 5.
- Of the 9,764 EB-5 visas issued 9,689 or 99.23% were in the T5 ($500,000 Direct-TEA/Rural) and I5 ($500,000 Regional Cetner-TEA/Rural) categories and less than 1% (.77%) were in the C5 ($1m Direct) and R5 ($1m Regional Center) categories representing almost $5 billion dollars invested in the US economy. This is slightly below the 10,692 issued in FY 2014. The reduction is because the number of visas available declined slightly as a result of less spillover from unused family visas together with many visa applicant no-shows for September 2015 interviews. Some were refused, primarily for not having all of the required documents, and were classified as Section 221(g) “soft “denials.
- Of these 9,764 EB-5 visas only 991 or roughly 10% adjusted status in the U.S., whereas 8,773 consular processed through American consulates or embassies abroad. See more at: http://connect.wolfsdorf.com/?p=2017#sthash.tscFC7fZ.dpuf.
