Conversation with Director Mayorkas and Processing Changes Update
August 11, 2011 9 Comments
Today I listened in on the first teleconference in the “Conversations with the Director” series focusing on Opportunities for Business Entrepreneurs within the U.S. Immigration System. Director Mayorkas participated the call, along with representatives from the Office of Policy and Strategy, Service Center Operations, and Office of Chief Counsel. The call included almost two hours of public Q&A, largely focusing on the L-1, E-2, and H1-b programs. It proved mainly a forum for the public to air concerns about adjudication problems, and for the leadership to listen sympathetically and say they’d look into it. A few points of interest for the EB-5 community:
Status of EB-5 Processing Changes. Director Mayorkas provided the following update:
- USCIS has finished reviewing 177 pages of comments on the proposed processing changes
- USCIS will publish a final reformed process “in the next few weeks”
- In September, USCIS will implement one of the proposed changes: direct communication with the adjudicative team.
- USCIS is moving forward “as quickly as possible” on implementing premium processing, but this will take time. USCIS is currently revising its proposal, and there will also need to be significant operational steps including revising the forms and Federal Register changes before premium processing will be a reality.
Adjudicator Training. The leadership is undertaking adjudicator training in an attempt to address problems and inconsistencies, and several callers were encouraged to send their problem RFEs to the Office of Public Engagement (public.engagement@dhs.gov) for use in the training.
EB-5 Updates 
Did Mayorkas say what specific methods will be used to communicate with the adjudicative team? Email, fax or regular mail?
Director Mayorkas mentioned email.
Do you know something about SONY project, which has been asked for RFEs? Has it been put into AAO ? What’s the attitude of USCIS towards this project. Thank you!
I don’t know anything about the SONY project beyond the info released by CanAm. It takes a long time for cases to get through the AAO, and project information and RFEs aren’t made public unless they become part of a publicized decision.
This is an amazing blog. Thanks for posting all the recent news about EB5.
JW Chang,
Are you an investor in the Sony Project? Did you hear about Sony project being put into AAO from some other source?
Mansi,
It’s just my guess, since it has been an unexpected long time. I just have no idea what is going on for dear USCIS to make a decision that long. It has already finished the RFE process and no decision at all. Waiting is all consuming.
If you had to guess when do you think premium processing will be implemented?
Great blog by the way.
I don’t have a guess because in my opinion the California Service Center doesn’t currently have the capacity to implement premium processing for EB-5. I believe that genuine intention and even urgency are there on the leadership level, but I just can’t imagine how it’s practically possible on the ground. In that I’m considering how cases are processed now and what’s sure to be overwhelming demand for premium processing. Here is the opinion of Robert DeVine, who has his ear as close to the ground as anyone: http://iiusablog.org/government-affairs/timing-eb5-operational-enhancements-uscis/. Also be sure to sign up for the two teleconferences coming up this week with USCIS, which are sure to provide updates.
Thanks Suzanne. I think you may be right. Really appreciate the information.