Regulations Update (8/2018?)

The OMB Spring 2018 Unified Agenda has been published, with new estimated dates on action for EB-5 regulations.

• Estimated Final Action in August 2018 for RIN 1615-AC07 (EB-5 Immigrant Investor Program Modernization), which proposed investment amount and TEA changes. (The Fall 2017 Agenda had previously anticipated Final Action in February 2018.)
• Estimated Notice of Proposed Rule-making in March 2019 for RIN 1615-AC11 (EB-5 Immigrant Investor Regional Center Program), which dealt with regional center designation and the exemplar approval process. (The Fall 2017 Agenda had previously anticipated NPRM in October 2018.)

It remains to be seen whether these new estimated action dates will be more reliable than previous deadlines. RIN 1615-AC07 is currently a Proposed Rule at Step 7 in the Rulemaking Process, and is not yet listed by the OMB as a Regulatory Action Currently Under Review for Department of Homeland Security.

[6/19 UPDATE: USCIS Director L. Francis Cissna testified at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on EB-5 regarding the regulations that “USCIS is currently reviewing the comments and moving forward in the regulatory process with both of these items as expeditiously as possible.” This means that the regs have not in fact advanced as far as we’d thought. When asked whether he thought the regs could be finalized before the 9/30/2018 regional center program sunset date, Mr. Cissna said he didn’t know but that would be “hard to pull off.”]

Speaking at the IIUSA conference on April 27, Kathy Nuebel Kovarik of the USCIS Office of Policy and Strategy “reinforced her department’s position that they will try to get EB-5 regulatory reform done this year, as indicated on the Unified Regulatory Agenda.” This came on the heels of a letter sent by Senators Grassley, Goodlatte, and Leahy to DHS urging the administration to finalize regulations (repeating calls previously made in 2015 and again in 2016 and again in 2017). This week, IIUSA sent an open letter to USCIS encouraging the agency to finalize the proposed EB-5 regulation, but with lower investment amounts ($1 million, or $800,000 in a TEA) than previously suggested. However, the forces against finalizing the regulations remain strong (administrative inertia, and the many stakeholders opposed to the proposed changes). We shall see what happens.

The OMB notices indicate that IPO has hired a new Chief of Policy (Edie Pearson), which is good to know.

FYI, my May 2017 post New EB-5 Regulations: Comments Discussion reviews the proposed regulations and industry response.