USCIS Holds Quarterly Stakeholders Meeting

On December 16, 2010, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) Service Center Operations (SCOPS) Directorate and the Office of Public Engagement (OPE) hosted the EB-5 Investor Quarterly Engagement. The agenda and relevant information are available here. A summary of the most recent meeting and information on the latest stakeholder meeting, please visit here.

EB-5 statistics for FY 2010. As part of the Quarterly Engagement, USCIS released statistics on usage of the EB-5 program for fiscal year (FY) 2010. Among the highlights:

• The number of approved Regional Centers has reached 120 spread across 35 states, the District of Columbia, and Guam. A complete list is posted at http://www.uscis.gov/eb-5centers.
• Approximately 90 percent of all EB-5 investors have invested in a Regional Center (RC).
• USCIS received 110 initial RC proposal filings in FY 2010. Of that total, 36 were approved and 30 were denied. USCIS also received 42 amended RC proposal filings, of which 27 were approved and 11 were denied.
• The number of Form I-526s (Immigrant Petition by Alien Entrepreneur) and Form I-829s  (Petition by Entrepreneur to Remove Conditions) filed with USCIS increased significantly from the previous fiscal year. The number of I-526 petitions increased roughly 90 percent to 1,955 in the 2010 fiscal year, compared to 1,028 in FY 2009. Likewise, the number of I-829 petitions was up roughly 75 percent, from 437 in FY 2009 to 768 in FY 2010.
• The approval rate for initial I-526 petitions continued to increase. Of the I-526 petitions that received final action in FY 2010, USCIS approved 1,369 (89 percent) and denied 165. By contrast, in FY 2009 USCIS approved 86 percent of the I-526 petitions that received final action (1,262) and denied 207. In the prior four fiscal years, both the total rate and number of approvals gradually increased from 53 percent in FY 2005 (179 approvals and 156 denials), to 73 percent in FY 2006 (336 approvals and 124 denials), to 76 percent in FY 2007 (473 approvals and 148 denials), to 84 percent in FY 2008 (640 approvals and 120 denials).
• The approval rate for I-829s, however, declined to 83 percent of petitions that received final action in FY 2010, with 274 approved and 56 denied. By comparison, 86 percent of I-829 petitions were approved in FY 2009 (347 approvals and 56 denials). Until FY 2010 the approval rate for I-829s had steadily risen from 62 percent in FY 2005 (184 approvals and 112 denials) to 64 percent in FY 2006 (106 approvals and 59 denials) to 69 percent in FY 2007 (111 approvals and 49 denials) to 70 percent in FY 2008 (159 approvals and 68 denials).
• The number of EB-5 visas issued in FY 2010 declined roughly 55 percent from the previous fiscal year, going from 4,218 visas issued in FY 2009 to 1,885 visas issued in FY 2010. Of those EB-5 visas issued in FY 2010, a total of 772 (41 percent) were issued to nationals from the People’s Republic of China. Other countries accounting for the most EB-5 visas issued in FY 2010 were South Korea with 16 percent (295), the U.K. with 7 percent (135), Taiwan with 5 percent (94), and India with 3 percent (62). The remaining 527 EB-5 visas (a total of 527) were issued to nationals of all other countries.

Processing times. USCIS also released its current EB-5 processing times. Currently, the processing time for a typical I-526 petition is five months, matching USCIS’s target. Form I-829 processing time is currently six months, compared to the target of five months. The processing time for an RC initial designation proposal also exceeds the target, with a current processing time of five months, compared to the target of four months. On the other hand, RC amended designation proposals are currently being processed in one month, while the target processing time is four months. For EB-5 cases in which USCIS issued a request for evidence (RFE), the agency said its goal is to decide the case within 30 days of receipt of a response to the RFE.

Statistics for individual RCs. In response to inquiries from members of Congress, investors, and the press, in FY 2011 USCIS plans to begin publishing quarterly and annual reports on filing volumes and final case actions on I-526 and I-829 petitions affiliated with specific RCs. However, USCIS does not have a system in place to quickly and accurately gather that information. Currently, RC affiliations are not noted until the petitions are assigned to an Immigration Service Officer (ISO) and some time passes before cases are assigned, so there is a lag of several months before that information is compiled. USCIS plans to start gathering RC affiliations shortly after petitions are filed and expects to publish its first quarterly report by June 2011.

I-526 and I-829 revisions. USCIS plans to revise forms I-526 and I-829 in 2011. Revisions will include information collection on RC affiliations. Drafts of the revised forms will be posted at http://www.regulations.gov for review and comment.

Additional EB-5 staff at California Service Center. USCIS has added staff to process EB-5 cases at the California Service Center (CSC). The CSC is training additional ISOs in processing forms I-526, I-829, I-924 and I-924A, and has also added another EB-5 supervisor. The new EB-5 Immigration Service Officers (ISOs) are being trained by current EB-5 ISOs, which USCIS said has temporarily slowed adjudication of EB-5 cases. Once the new ISOs are trained, USCIS expects to adjudicate EB-5 cases faster. USCIS plans to post its EB-5 training materials on the USCIS website by the end of February 2011.

Form I-924 (Application to Establish Regional Center) and I-924A (Supplemental Form). As of November 23, 2010, applications for RC designation must use Forms I-924 and the I-924A Supplement. In the week before these forms became mandatory, USCIS received approximately 100 initial and amended RC proposals, roughly 65 percent of all RC proposals filed during FY 2010. USCIS expects the surge in filings to delay processing of RC applications. Form I-924A must be filed by all approved RCs for the first time no later than December 29, 2011.

EB-5 FAQs. USCIS is preparing EB-5 Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs), which it plans to post on its website shortly. USCIS plans to update the FAQs regularly.