IPO Suggested Order of Documentation
July 19, 2017 1 Comment
IPO has added a very valuable resource to the EB-5 Resources page on the USCIS website:
Suggested Order of Documentation
The links direct to pages that provide a suggested list and order of contents for each EB-5 form. The regulations and Form Instructions already describe the evidentiary requirements for EB-5 petitions and applications, and these new pages don’t add new requirements. Rather, they provide the content in handy checklist form and suggest a way to standardize submissions by arranging required documents in a predictable order. We keep asking IPO what we can do to help improve the adjudication process and processing times, and this is a very helpful response. Immigration lawyers take note! If we can widely adopt the suggested order of documentation for each form, and most petitions take on a standard shape, with the same tabs in the same order, this will certainly support operational efficiencies at IPO and should help reduce processing times. Julia Harrison flagged this resource at today’s Employment Visa engagement in San Jose. I’ll write another post with more complete report of helpful input from the IPO representatives Julia Harrison and Jan Lyons, Kurt Vicha of FDNS, and Charlie Oppenheim from Department of State.
EB-5 Updates 
One of the subjects covered in USCIS basic training is ROP. ROP is the “record of proceeding” order to be used in the A-file (that is Administrative file; not Alien file). If a consistent order is used during case preparation and presentation, it does help save time for adjudication that would have been wasted shuffling papers around.