2012 AAO EB-5 Decisions Posted

USCIS recently posted a number of 2012 administrative decisions on EB-5 cases. To view them, go to the Administrative Decisions page on the USCIS website and click on categories B7, K1, and K2, then open the 2012 folders. The cases make interesting reading, with plenty of laugh/cry moments. The 2012 decisions include two regional center application denials, one regional center termination, eleven denials of I-526 petitions, and five revocations of I-526 approvals. You’re welcome to take a look at my rough notes on the decisions before digging into the files themselves. The RC application denials deal with questions about “verifiable detail” requirements and appropriate review standard. In my opinion, they reflect a perspective that will likely continue to make genuinely “hypothetical” or “general” RC proposals practically impossible, even if theoretically allowed by the 5/30/2013 EB-5 policy memo. Many of the I-526 petition denials involve problems with source (and especially path) of funds and failure to demonstrate an at-risk investment likely to result in job creation. The revocations of approved I-526s give an example of a USCIS investigation (including a visit by a USCIS officer to the business site). These decisions also state that a business cannot claim indirect job creation simply if it “is located within and falls within the economic scope of a defined regional center” (to quote an ill-considered sentence on page 14 of the 5/30/2013 memo), but must further demonstrate formal affiliation with a regional center.