“Operational Guidance” for the Tenant Occupancy Issue
May 11, 2012 6 Comments
The USCIS Office of Public Engagement just released a brief letter of “Operational Guidance” with the promising subject line: “Guidance on EB-5 Adjudications Involving the Tenant-Occupancy Methodology.” The letter treats the issue of deference to prior adjudications, and echoes the statement that Director Mayorkas made at the April 27th engagement.
EB-5 Updates 
I am baffled. What in the world are they talking about?
Since when does “a Form I-526 petition for an immigrant investor based on a specifically identified project NOT associated with a regional center” relay on economic methodologies to establish job creation?
You misread it. The determination about the Business Plan associated with the non-RC entrepreneur’s approved I-526 will not be revisited. As you do understand, a non-RC entrepreneur NEVER requires any Economic Analysis because they cannot count any “indirect jobs” predicted by it. Even if an EA is utilized by the stand-alone EB-5 entrepreneur for their own “peace of mind” it is not an evidentiary requirement.
Joe,
You may be correct in your read but I find it quite odd and “off base” that the agency would provide this example in a memo purportedly issued expressly to clarify the deference to be given to prior determinations approving economic methodologies that are only applied in the RC context. Beyond that, the deference they are talking about in that example is a simple matter of agency compliance Matter of Chang.
Bob
I think you are reading too much into one sentence that was only included out of effort to completely address the issue of “deference to prior determinations in the EB-5 context”.
Bob, I had the same thought as you. What is that doing here?
Perhaps it makes better sense to read the second example as “Oh, and as a reminder, ‘If we approved a Form I-526 petition for an immigrant investor based on a specifically identified project not associated with a regional center, we will not revisit the determination that the business plan was reasonable when adjudicating the investor’s related Form I-485 application or Form I-829 petition'”
One arrow two birds? The government being efficient?
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