Preventing fraud in EB-5 (CIIF investigation)

In his testimony before the House Judiciary Committee in February 2016, Investor Program Office Chief Nicholas Colucci discussed how much USCIS has done to improve its administration of the EB-5 program, with particular focus on adding resources to prevent the kind of fraud and abuse that can come with investment and immigration.

Over the past few years, USCIS has taken a number of steps to improve the administration of the EB-5 program. In 2013, USCIS realigned the EB-5 program into the Immigrant Investor Program Office, and relocated it from USCIS’ California Service Center, which adjudicates various immigration benefits, to Washington, D.C., with a Chief dedicated exclusively to EB-5 adjudications. As the United States Government Accountability Office (GAO) noted in its August 2015 report to Congressional requesters on the EB-5 program, this move was part of a restructuring to help USCIS better detect fraud. USCIS also created a Fraud Detection and National Security EB-5 Division (FDNS EB-5) and embedded its personnel within IPO to work alongside adjudications officers. Additionally, a dedicated team of attorneys from the USCIS Office of Chief Counsel advise on program-related legal matters. In staffing the IPO, USCIS has, and continues to invest in the specialties needed to manage the complex EB-5 caseload by hiring staff with expertise in economics, law, business, finance, securities and banking to review cases and to enhance consistency, timeliness, and integrity within the program….
USCIS has taken its responsibility to administer the EB-5 program very earnestly, through its specialized staffing devoted solely to this program and its extensive efforts to regulate the quickly growing regional center program. However, no agency can do this alone. The EB-5 program necessitates collaboration with several other agencies, and the establishment of IPO in Washington, D.C. allows USCIS to work closely with partners such as the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), with whom IPO shares a robust collaborative relationship. USCIS also works closely with its sister agency, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), as well as with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the U.S. Department of State, in support of our oversight of the EB-5 program.

Improvements have covered staffing, inter-agency collaborations, and improved processes for important functions such as vetting lawful source of investor funds (as further explained in follow-up testimony — see especially Question 15 in response to Senator Grassley and Question 5 in response to Dianne Feinstein.)

This week’s breaking news story Feds raid San Gabriel, Arcadia locations over visa-fraud scheme involving criminals on China’s most-wanted list reminds us why those improvements were so important. The case, as described in an Application for Search Warrant filed by an FBI investigator, indicates that USCIS approved I-526 petitions from 2009 to 2012 that (if FBI evidence is correct) should never have been approved — including cases that involved people who did not invest their own funds, people who were promptly refunded their investments, and three individuals listed on China’s most wanted list for financial crimes. The good news is that the net since 2013 seems to be holding. The warrant does not indicate that any investors named in the investigation have been able to to get permanent green cards (though several have had I-829 petitions on file since 2012, possibly pending this FBI investigation which seems to have started in 2013), and the post-2013 I-526 petitions discussed in the warrant are likewise pending. The investigation stands as evidence that people may try to get away with fraud and abuse — but not that they get away with it. Investors who may have been complicit have not successfully completed the immigration process, and the regional center principals have had the FBI at their heels (sometimes literally: “at approximately 11:13 a.m., observed TAT exit SUBJECT PREMISES #2’s front door and walk across the street, after which he talked to a gardener, and then returned and entered SP#2. At 11:45 a.m. observed TAT exit SP#2 and go to the mailbox in front of the residence and retrieve mail. At 12:13 p.m. observed TAT walking from SP#2 carrying a black-colored briefcase-sized soft bag in his hands. TAT then walked across the street.”) and are now facing formal fraud investigation. Dozens of good faith investors in CIIF offerings and anyone with CIIF who’s innocent of fraud are unfortunate collateral damage, and I wish for their sake that the FBI had worked more quickly. (Updates: Some investors have filed suit in civil court to try to get their money back, and Federal Prosecutors have filed civil complaints seeking asset forfeiture. Victoria Chan has pled guilty to fraud and money-laundering charges.)