WA Updates, Visa Numbers, Ombudsman, RC List Updates

Washington Updates

August passed with no final rule for EB-5 regulations. OMB has not even received the regulations for review. USCIS Director Cissna told Congress in June that he thought it would be tough to finalize the regs before Sept 30, 2018, and I don’t expect any action soon.

The Regional Center program is currently authorized through 9/30/2018, pursuant to Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2018, Division M—Extensions, Title II—Immigration Extensions (PDF p. 702). The RC program could be extended beyond 9/30 explicitly (if Congress passes a 2019 appropriations act that mentions RC program authorization) or implicitly (if Congresses passes a Continuing Resolution that would postpone the deadline for 2018 appropriations, including the program authorizations in Division M Title II). 9/13 Update: The House has introduced a Continuing Resolution that would extend a number of 2018 authorities and authorizations, including Division M Title II, to December 7, 2018. I’m adding status updates to my Washington Update page.

The 2019 appropriations could be a vehicle for other immigration changes as part of the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations segment. The version of the DHS Appropriations Act 2019 voted out of committee in the House includes the Yoder amendment, which would eliminate the per-country limit for EB-5 visas. The Senate version of 2019 DHS appropriations includes no such provision. It remains to be seen what final version will be negotiated by the House and Senate.

Here’s my understanding of the current status, based on this article: Congress faces September scramble on spending (September 3, 2018) The Hill.

• Spending legislation comprises 12 individual appropriations bills for different agencies. In 2018 these were all packaged together in one “omnibus” with miscellaneous other content; this year, lawmakers want to avoid an omnibus, instead sending individual bills to the President.
• Senators have passed 9 out of the 12 individual appropriations bills for 2019, but the House and Senate have yet to sort out in conference any of the differences in their bills.
• One of the three appropriations bills that has not passed the Senate, and that lawmakers do not want to touch until after the midterm election, is the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act (which concerns border wall funding, among other contentious issues). A Continuing Resolution may be passed as a stopgap to defer votes on 2019 DHS appropriations (and likely at least two other spending bills) until after November. The stopgap is likely to go into December, but leadership hasn’t yet worked out the details of a short-term bill. If a CR is passed for DHS appropriations, what would defer a decision on the per-country cap to December. (A CR for DHS appropriations would not affect regional center authorization, since RC program authorization is not in the 2018 DHS appropriations act, but rather in a different part of the 2018 omnibus.)
• In 2018 appropriations, regional center program authorization is not attached to any of the 12 individual appropriations bills, but is in a 13^th section – Division M – devoted to program extensions/authorization. The Hill reports that “In the Senate, Appropriations Committee Chairman Shelby and Vice-Chair Patrick Leahy agreed to keep authorizing language out of the appropriations process.” I’m not sure what that means exactly. Could Division M be folded into a continuing resolution to December, which would also extend the RC program sunset date to December? I look forward to advocacy alerts from IIUSA.

Visa Numbers

USCIS has responded to the lawsuit by Chinese investors over the issue of family members in the EB-5 visa quota. This article discusses and analyses the USCIS response: The Government’s Poor Defense of Counting Derivatives against Immigration Quotas (August 27, 2018) Cato Institute

Meanwhile, people from India have an on-going challenge to try estimating the visa queue and cut-off date timing by tracking news on EB-5 visa demand among Indians. China models a hard lesson: do not wait to be surprised by the Visa Bulletin! The visa wait time for an Indian investor filing I-526 today does not depend on today’s Visa Bulletin but on future Visa Bulletins, which in turn depend on the number of other Indians currently filing and currently waiting for I-526 processing at USCIS. 700 visas/year * 1 investor petition/about 3 visas = about 233 investors that can be accommodated per year per country considering the 7% per-country limit. Two groups active in India — Can Am and LCR Partners – each report having over 200 Indian investors in 2018, which means about two-years-worth of EB-5 visas available to India claimed just this year through just two firms. Something to watch.  The timing for a Visa Bulletin cut-off date for India depends on USCIS’s speed in adjudicating Indian petitions and advancing them to the visa stage. (My post from June explains the process in more detail.)

New RFE and NOID Policy

I plan to listen in on an Ombudsman Teleconference on USCIS Policy Updates on the Issuance of RFEs and NOIDs  September 6, 2018, from 2:00pm to 3:00pm EDT. The policy updates are not specific to EB-5, but significant for those of us who help prepare I-526 paperwork. As background, see USCIS Issues Two New Policy Memoranda on Notices to Appear and Denials in Lieu of RFEs and NOIDs – What This Means for You (July 16, 2018) GT Alert

Due Diligence

I frequently get emails from investors asking for investment advice, which I can’t give. But I will say that I appreciated the points in this article How Transparent are EB-5 Project Managers (July 11, 2018). If I were a prospective EB-5 investor, account transparency, communication, and independent oversight would be major factors in my investment decision. See also Friedland & Calderon’s article EB-5 2.0: Can Account Transparency Save the Program? (Draft December 6, 2016).

Updates from USCIS

After having hosted EB-5 engagements almost quarterly since 2010, USCIS is now on track to go an entire year with no EB-5 stakeholder meeting. Does this relate to leadership turnover at IPO, I wonder? A wish not to discuss the unfinalized regs, unwritten redeployment policy, and fluctuating processing times? One suspects that no news isn’t good news. Please talk to us, IPO. Maybe we can help.

Regional Center List Changes

Additions to the USCIS Regional Center List, 08/02/2018 to 08/21/2018

• APRC Mesa Verde, LLC (Colorado)

New Terminations

• APIC Regional Center, LLC (Oregon) Terminated 8/8/2018
• Build America Capital Partners Regional Center LLC (California) Terminated 7/31/2018
• Washington State Regional Center (Washington) Terminated 7/31/2018
• American Bridge Seattle Regional Center, LLC (Washington) Terminated 8/1/2018
• Saipan Regional Investment Center, LLC (Commonwealth of Northern Marianas Islands) Terminated 8/8/2018
• American Altin Regional Center (California) Terminated 8/8/2018
• Great Ocean Regional Center (Washington) Terminated 7/30/2018
• Future Resources, Inc. (California) Terminated 8/15/2018
• North American Regional Center (New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania) Terminated 8/2/2018
• Build America Fund 1, LLC (California) Terminated 8/9/2018
• California International Regional Center LLC (California) Terminated 7/10/2018