2/26 USCIS SOF teleconference, New RCs

USCIS Engagement on EB-5 Source of Funds
Today USCIS hosted an “EB-5 Interactive Series” teleconference on the topic of Requests for Evidence on Lawful Source of Funds for Investment. As promised in the invitation: “The topic of discussion will be lawful source of funds used for capital investment in the EB-5 program. We will discuss common reasons why petitioners receive requests for evidence and types of evidence that are helpful to submit.” The call was nicely detailed and highly technical and offered no surprises that I could spot, but then I don’t work with source of funds documentation. If this is your field and you want to review the call, you may download my recording. (See also the Klasko law blog and EB-5 Insights blog for comments on the call.) USCIS stated that it will not be posting an engagement summary, so we won’t have the convenience of just reading the prepared statements read on the call. USCIS concluded the call with four general tips for avoiding a source of funds RFE: (1) explain any inconsistencies in the documents provided; (2) if a required document is unavailable, explain why; (3) consider the probative value of evidence (ie evidence from an objective third party will be more compelling than evidence from you/your friend/your family/your company); (4) provide full translations of foreign documents. UPDATE: USCIS has posted these tips on a new EB-5 Evidence page.

New Regional Centers
Additions to the USCIS Regional Center List, 2/3/2015 to 2/23/2015

• EB5 United West Regional Center, LLC (California)
• North American Center for Foreign Investments, LLC (California)
• Pacific Investment & Immigration Regional Center (California)
• Front Range Regional Center, Inc. (Colorado and New Mexico): www.pathwayseb5.com
• BLT TriState Regional Center LLC (Connecticut, New Jersey, New York)
• USCFID New York LLC (Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania)
• Midwest Regional Center, Inc. (Kentucky)
• Northeast Monument Regional Center LLC (Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island)
• G.R.E.E.N. Regional Center (New Jersey)
• The New Mexico Regional Center (New Mexico)
• U.S. Immigration Recovery Fund NY, LLC (New York)

Removed from the list: Midwest EB-5 Regional Center, LLC (Ohio, Kentucky)