RC Application Materials Posted!

I have sighed through the part of  EB-5 stakeholder meetings when a newbie calls in to ask  about the availability of example actual Regional Center applications, and receives the usual and obvious answer that such documents are full of proprietary business detail that USCIS has no right to share with the public. But I sighed too soon. Joseph Whalen just alerted me to the fact that USCIS has released application materials for several Regional Centers in connection with FOIA (the Freedom of Information and Privacy Act). The file for each RC runs to many hundreds of pages — many of the pages blank (redacted) but also many pages offering bits of actual business plans, offering documents, Requests for Evidence, and responses to RFEs. The EB-5 Related Documents posted by USCIS are as follows:

• Alabama Center for Foreign Investment Regional Center
• American Redevelopment Regional Center
• Bay Area Regional Center
• CMB Summit LLC Regional Center
• California Military Bases Export LLC Regional Center
• California Wineries & Vineyards LLC Regional Center
• Chicagoland Foreign Investment Group Regional Center
• Florida Overseas Investment Center
• American Life

A note of caution. These materials will be of interest to voyeurs and historians, but not so useful to those who mainly want an example to copy. Most of the materials are at least three years old, and applications filed in 2012 are subject to different expectations. Also, the heavy redacting means that it’s hard to put these materials in context. For example there’s no way to tell whether the segment of business plan copied on page 652, with many blank pages on either side, represents part of the initial application or an amendment, whether USCIS accepted or challenged that segment, and whether or not the RC actually implemented that aspect of the plan. So I wouldn’t suggest relying on these documents for any guidance, though they are a trove for the curious.