What is normal I-829 processing?

October 31, 2020 16 Comments

The latest USCIS Check Case Processing Times page update gives the implausible report that Form I-829 is not considered “outside normal” processing unless it was filed almost 20 years ago, before May 2001. But not to fear — this does not mean that I-829 should take, will take, or have normally taken that long to process.

What does the report mean?

I have a theory that could explain the I-829 processing time update: maybe USCIS finally adjudicated a batch of I-829 petitions held limbo since 2002 over compliance with Public Law 107-273.  (A situation described at the end of the post, if you’re interested.) If that’s correct, then the report is good news. (And the only alternate explanation I can think of is that 234 months is simply a made-up number or a typo.)

Certainly, the page update does not mean that 36.5 to 234 months is now or ever has been a normal or expected range for I-829 processing.  In communication with stakeholders, USCIS treats the reported “estimated time range” as defining normal processing — but that application is simply mistaken, given the reporting methodology. As explained on the USCIS website, the processing time report Estimated Time Range uses a method where only the first month represents something like a normal processing — the median processing time of recently adjudicated cases — while the larger month represents the border of extreme outliers in recent adjudications. Unfortunately, the report uses that larger month to calculate the “case inquiry date.” This unreasonably prevents inquiries until a pending petition is older than 93% of cases recently processed — and creates unreasonable situations like the 20-year-old cutoff currently published for I-829.  A published “case inquiry date” in May 2001 is good news in the sense that it’s obviously ridiculous and discredits the way processing time report case inquiry dates are reported and used.

Alternate data for I-829 processing times

When the USCIS Check Processing Times Page is misleading, how else can we get a sense of normal and actual I-829 processing times? Available sources include sporadic reports of specific adjudications, I-829 volume trends, and the law.

In the USCIS FOIA reading room, there’s a file I-829 Approvals, Denials, and Receipts for Q1 of FY19 (PDF, 257.8 KB). The file lists the filing date and the approval or denial date for every Form I-829 adjudicated October 2018 to December 2018. I put the file in Excel and made a chart to show the pattern of actual processing times in this quarter for which we happen to have have complete data. As illustrated in the chart, the majority of decisions (79%) came in under 30 months. (Specifically 18-30 months: a wider ranger than one would expect from a nominally FIFO process.) And then there was a very long skinny tail of outliers.

Meanwhile, back around December 2018, the USCIS Check Case Processing Times page was reporting an I-829 estimated time range of 30 to 39 months (as recorded in my on-going log of processing time reports).  Most people looking at that report in 2018 would not have interpreted the reality: that 79% of I-829 being processed had waited less than 30 months. The report was misleading, even if it may have been technically accurate in reflecting the median and 93rd percentile of recent adjudications.

If most I-829 petitions adjudicated at the end of 2018 had a processing time between 18 and 30 months, what can we guess about I-829 adjudications today? Actual processing times today should be shorter or longer than that depending on how much productivity has increased or decreased since then. (Receipt volume should not vary the workload much, since the annual quota for CPR visas naturally paces demand for PR.) The following chart illustrates I-829 filing and productivity data reports from the USCIS Citizenship & Immigration Data page.

Productivity (approvals+denials per quarter) leading up to December 2018 was a bit higher overall than productivity since then, which would naturally mean that people getting I-829 decisions today probably waited longer than people getting decisions in December 2018. But future I-829 processing times promise to be shorter, if the productivity improvement evident early this year turns into a continuing trend.

The Law

In assessing what’s “normal” for I-829 processing, we needn’t just consider reported times, or actual times in recent experience. The fact that 1.5-to-3-year times are typical doesn’t make them normal. To quote from the 2020 Final Fee Rule: “DHS acknowledges its obligation to adjudicate Form I-829 filings within 90 days of the filing date or interview, whichever is later. See INA section 216(c)(3)(A)(ii), 8 U.S.C. 1186b (c)(3)(A)(ii).”

The Public Law 107-273 Saga

The “234 months” in the current I-829 processing time report could only be true by its methodology if indeed 7% of I-829 recently processed were more than 234 months old. Is that even possible? Reaching into my memory, I realize that yes, I do know of one multi-decade delay factor affecting a few cases. Here’s what happened.

  • In 1995 to 1998, a number of EB-5 investors received I-526 approval for deals that the immigration service would later judge to be problematic.
  • In 1998, the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), the predecessor agency to USCIS, issued four precedent decisions addressing the eligibility requirements for EB-5 petitions. The publication of these precedent decisions resulted in litigation over their applicability to cases at various stages of adjudication.
  • In 2002, Congress passed Public Law 107-273 with language to resolve the situation for EB-5 investors who had petitions pending when the 1998 precedent decisions changed the rules. P.L. 107-273 offered options for these immigrants to perfect their investments in order to remove conditions on permanent residence. P.L. 107-273 specified that the immigration service must publish implementing regulations in 120 days (hahahahaha), and could not take adverse action on I-829 for those immigrants until implementing regulations were effective.
  • Twice a year from 2003 to 2010, the OMB Unified Agency announced the immigration service’s intent to finalize/propose regulations soon. Nothing was published or finalized. The pending I-829 for petitioners affected by PL 107-273 stayed pending for nearly a decade.
  • In 2010 at an EB-5 stakeholder meeting, USCIS announced that those PL 107-273 I-829 petitions were finally getting attention. USCIS said that they had just reviewed and approved some of the I-829, and had 581 affected I-829 left that would be held in abeyance pending finalized regulations.
  • 2011: A Proposed rule was finally published in the Federal Register for “Treatment of Aliens Whose Employment Creation Immigrant (EB-5) Petitions Were Approved After January 1, 1995 and Before August 31, 1998.” The public commented.
  • 2011-2019: Almost another decade passed, and the proposed regulations were not finalized.
  • October 2020: An I-829 processing times report suggests that USCIS recently processed a batch of I-829 about two decades old. I hope this means PL 107-273 closure at last. Also, that USCIS will take a lesson from this story: avoid retroactive rule-changes!

Filed under EB-5 Resources

EB-5 process illustration (Visa Bulletin questions)

October 23, 2020 54 Comments

The Visa Bulletin exists to provide crowd control for the visa process. But it’s complicated – even for Department of State apparently, as they’re currently over a week late with the November 2020 visa bulletin. What’s happening behind the scenes, as DOS tries to decide what to put in the visa bulletin?

The visa process and timing for EB-5 are complicated by a multi-stage and multi-constraint process. The Visa Bulletin exercises a measure of control by publishing filing and final action dates that help to pace visa demand to match available supply. But knowing supply and demand is not enough to guess the visa bulletin, thanks to other factors at work.

In an attempt to add some clarity, I made a visual to illustrate the stages and constraints that determine what happens with the visa bulletin and EB-5 visa wait times. (This is part of my still forth-coming but belated webinar on China EB-5 visa timing – my apologies to those who have been waiting patiently.)  I hope that this image can help to orient readers and replace a thousand words of explanation.

Points I particularly want to make with this image:

  1. Getting a green card is roughly a two-stage process (first I-526 petition, then visa application), but includes five places where an in-process EB-5 applicant could be at any given time. To estimate visa wait times, which depend on total EB-5 demand, one should count applicants in all five places. For the visa bulletin, which depends on currently-eligible EB-5 visa demand, Department of State just looks at people in four places. DOS does not count pending I-526 for visa bulletin analysis, since this population can’t practically proceed to application filing or final action yet, lacking I-526 approval.
  2. The visa bulletin filing and final action dates serve as constraints to control the flow of people through the EB-5 process, but they’re not the only constraints at work. USCIS processing productivity also makes a significant difference in determining who gets to move to final action and when. And these days, COVID-19-justified shutdowns can block or expedite final action for individuals in practice.

Application to timing questions:

  • My priority date is available or current in the visa bulletin — why hasn’t my I-526 or I-485 been approved? Because the visa bulletin is not the only constraint. USCIS capacity and willingness to process petitions can also slow the process, even for petitions with visas available.
  • Why have India and Vietnam been getting different visa bulletin treatment despite having about the same predictions for total visa wait time? The wait time predictions for India and Vietnam in 2019 were about the same because they had about the same total number of people in process. But — at different stages. Many Vietnamese have approved I-526, and thus in the stage where the visa bulletin controls their forward movement. Meanwhile, many of the Indians still have pending I-526 – thus still out-of-range for the visa bulletin. Therefore, recent visa bulletins have been tight for Vietnam but loose for India.
  • Does the relaxed visa bulletin for India mean that total visa wait times for India have shortened? Not for everyone. The current visa bulletin needn’t account for the thousands of Indians with pending I-526, but those thousands still exist. Most will eventually get I-526 approval, one trusts, thus expanding the visa-stage queue and triggering future visa bulletin movement.
  • Can total EB-5 visa demand be estimated by adding applications pending at the National Visa Center to applicants associated with pending I-526? Yes, as an approximation. But keep in mind that this method counts two of the five stations where applicants can be at any given time. This reminder is particularly important for China timing estimates, which have risked undercounting demand.
  • Does the visa bulletin affect everyone at the visa stage equally? Not necessarily, because the visa stage is divided into groups with different circumstances. Applicants at the National Visa Center and on I-485 might react equally in a normal year, but not in 2020, when COVID-19 precautions have blocked final action for consular processing but not status adjustment. If DOS does advance visa bulletin final action dates now, it will practically only help I-485, while potentially disadvantaging visa applicants dependent on closed consulates.
  • Why is Department of State still sweating over the November 2020 visa bulletin? Because it’s tough to create order right now in the visa process. Should DOS relax the visa bulletin to let U.S.-based applicants go full steam ahead, with the benefit of maximizing visa usage in a heavy supply year but the disadvantage of leaving applicants abroad behind, and risking retrogression? Or should DOS tighten the visa bulletin constraint, and thus help keep an even playing field and avoid future retrogression — but at the cost of letting visas go unclaimed? How do they balance the effect of the visa bulletin constraints with the effect of constraints outside their control: the pandemic, USCIS productivity, and USCIS willingness to advance documents through the process? Political winds may also be a factor. In the July 29, 2020 Hearing on USCIS Oversight, Rep. Zoe Lofgren mentioned that she had received complaints of administration officials overruling career civil servants with respect to the visa bulletin. No doubt Stephen Miller is motivated to do whatever he can to ensure that FY2021 does not fulfill its potential as a record year for EB visas issued. Congress has also flirted recently with changing the most important process constraint — the number of annual visas available. There’s still the president’s Executive Order on Hong Kong, yet to be interpreted and also possibly a sticking point. But I believe that the career civil servants are currently still working hard to navigate very complicated terrain in the fairest possible way.

UPDATE: The November 2020 visa bulletin finally published on 10/29/2020 has no surprises — same wording as usual, and dates consistent with the October 2020 bulletin.  The China cut-off dates remain specifically for “China-Mainland born.” Good job standing up for law and order, civil servants.

Filed under EB-5 Law & Policy, EB-5 Statistics

AAO decisions on source and path of funds appeals

October 19, 2020 6 Comments

Petitioners who believe that their I-526 was denied in error have the option of appealing to the Administrative Appeals Office. AAO decisions on these appeals eventually get published to the USCIS website, where I read them and take notes to learn more about directions in EB-5 adjudications. I also download copies of the decisions, since the recent USCIS website redesign makes the decisions awkward to find, and since USCIS sometimes deletes files (as happened recently with all I-526 decisions from late June 2020 to September 2020, for example).

For community reference, I have made a folder that collects all AAO decisions since 2018 that specifically address source of funds, including a number of decisions since deleted from the USCIS website: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/igmg6anauua0mtz/AAA2uOuDIfTmKd1C72UJV74Ua?dl=0. A majority of the source of funds appeals since 2019 involve petitioners from China or Vietnam whose path of funds included third party exchangers. The decisions help trace the development of USCIS/AAO thinking on the issue of currency swaps, and include a few sustained appeals. While I do not work with EB-5 source of funds, I hope that this collection of AAO decisions will be helpful reference for people who are facing source-of-funds-related RFEs and NOIDs, or litigating on behalf of EB-5 investors. And I would love to see updated industry articles and advocacy on source/path of funds adjudications. The articles I know about (linked below) are from 2017/2018.

In a currency swap, the EB-5 investor sends local currency to the local account of an intermediary, and the intermediary then wires an equivalent amount in US dollars to the investor’s account in the U.S.  Starting in late 2016/early 2017, USCIS began to issue RFEs requesting source-of-funds documentation for the intermediary/third party exchanger’s funds, as well as evidence to overcome presumption that the exchange itself was unlawful. Older articles for reference:

Filed under EB-5 Law & Policy

Assessing EB-5 TEA Qualification (online tools)

October 16, 2020 Leave a comment

How can we tell whether an area qualifies as a Targeted Employment Area for EB-5, now that states no longer issue TEA designation letters?

Letters are a handy form of evidence, better than printing out thousand-row spreadsheets, so most Form I-526 will still be accompanied by a letter that presents data and explains TEA qualification. The project company, regional center, or lawyer can hire a private expert to write the letter. But naturally, the analysis won’t look as automatically authoritative as a letter signed by a state labor department. So how can we still feel confident about TEA analysis? With TEA qualification making the difference between a $900,000 investment and a $1.8 million investment, we want to be sure on this point.

Thankfully, new online tools have helped to add convenience and transparency to the TEA process. The websites for the U.S. Census Bureau and Bureau of Labor Statistics are quite difficult for laymen to navigate, but three EB-5 industry sources have compiled relevant Census and BLS data in online TEA tools. I can recommend the following, having tested each (and if you know of any others, send me a link and I’ll try them out too): IIUSA TEA Tool, Impact DataSource TEA Tool, EB5 Affiliate Network TEA Tool.

The TEA tools are set up so that you enter an address, and the tool will tell you whether and how that address can qualify as a TEA. The tools use the same data options and methods consistent with USCIS guidance, while differing in which types of TEA geographies they particularly highlight or facilitate checking.

As a reminder, a given address may qualify as a TEA with respect to its location in the following geographies: single census tract, census tract group, MSA, county that is within an MSA or contains a city/town with population over 20,000, city/town with population over 20,000 which is outside an MSA, or rural area outside an MSA and not in the outer boundary of a city/town with population over 20,000. (Census tract group is the most common type of TEA.) In addition to geography options, TEA designation offers data options (with data available from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and/or U.S. Census Bureau explicitly sanctioned by USCIS as reasonable). If a given address qualifies as a TEA at multiple geographic levels and with multiple data options, so much the better.

I’d go to the IIUSA tool first if I wanted to scan a map looking for obvious TEA areas, or if I were interested in any geography option besides census tract group. I’d go to the IDS or EB5AN tools first if I expected a location to qualify as part of a census tract group. Both the IDS and EB5AN tools automatically identify which contiguous census tracts will optimize the TEA opportunity within USCIS policy restrictions. The IDS tool is unique in offering an additional trend feature that uses the latest monthly BLS data to help foresee future TEA changes – which will be significant in 2021, considering the crazy employment year in 2020. The EB5AN tool has the advantage of integrated map with census tract overlay, and the option of downloading a free template TEA letter.

I think it’s easy and good practice to just check all three tools when examining a particular location, though each should offer the same conclusions. That way if one company or organization eventually neglects to update data on time or makes some other slip, the difference from another tool will flag the issue and help prevent mistakes. And then, having used the online tools as a research reference, you can pay a qualified consultant to actually write up a TEA analysis letter, present the data, and remind you about the TEA qualification issues besides data and geography (TEA timing, and where jobs are located).

TEA Tool Comparison

Tool IIUSA TEA Tool
 		 Impact DataSource TEA Tool EB5 Affiliate Network TEA Tool
Source Industry trade association Economist service provider Regional center operator
Advantages / Distinctive Features Best if you want to scan a map to visually identify rural areas and single census tract TEAs.
Only tool that reports county, MSA, and city-level data as well as census tract data.
Map portion of the tool functions most smoothly.		 Good for identifying census tract group TEAs.
Best for predicting future TEA changes, as it separately reports and illustrates the latest monthly unemployment data trends.
Facilitates creating your own census tract groups.
Includes MSA TEAs.		 Good for identifying census tract group TEAs.
Only option that offers to automatically generate a free TEA letter.
Census tract grouping tool is integrated with the map.
More detail than IDS (but less than IIUSA) for county and rural TEA.
Comparative Disadvantages Does not identify or automatically calculate census tract group TEAs (though it provides data that allow doing this oneself). The map integrated with the tool is not visually helpful – no overlay of census tract or other boundaries.
While correctly assessing TEA qualification at the county, MSA, and rural level, does not show the data used to make those determinations.		 Intrusive advertising.
Map portion does not work as smoothly as IIUSA’s. Can have technical glitches if checking multiple addresses.
Rounding data to two decimal places maximizes opportunity for marginal TEAs (strength and weakness).
Does not flag MSA TEA.

As an illustration, a few screen shots of the various options for checking how my office location may qualify as a TEA.

Filed under EB-5 Resources

Source of all invested capital

October 8, 2020 7 Comments

From: Suzanne Lazicki
Sent: October 8, 2020 7:04 PM
To: ‘public.engagement@uscis.dhs.gov’
Subject: EB-5 Question

Dear IPO,

This email asks a single important question in response to the EB-5 Call for Questions. My small business owner clients and I look forward to your response.

Why does the May 2019 USCIS Adjudicator Training instruct adjudicators to apply the lawful capital requirement in 8 CFR 204.6(g)(1) only to “non-EB-5 sources of capital invested in the NCE,” creating a requirement specific to standalone petitioners to identify and be liable for source of funds for other NCE owners?

8 CFR 204.6 (g)(1) does not say that pooled investment is allowed “provided that the source(s) of all non-EB-5 capital is identified and all non-EB-5 owner capital has been derived by lawful means.” Rather, the regulation says “all capital.”

” ….. The establishment of a new commercial enterprise may be used as the basis of a petition for classification as an alien entrepreneur even though there are several owners of the enterprise, including persons who are not seeking classification under section 2 0 3 (b) ( 5) of the Act and non-natural persons, both foreign and domestic, provided that the source(s) of all capital invested is identified and all invested capital has been derived by lawful means.” 8 CFR 204.6 (g)(1) (emphasis added).

8 CFR 204.6 (g)(1) refers to all capital and all owners. What’s required — and not required — of a given petitioner with respect to other NCE owners applies regardless of owner type per the regulations.

The Form I-526 and I-526 Instructions request evidence only for the petitioner’s own lawful source of funds. It is unreasonable to interpret 8 CFR 204.6 (g)(1) as requiring each petitioner to identify, validate, and bear responsibility for the source of all other funds in the same NCE, whether from non-EB-5 or EB-5 owners. But if USCIS does make this extreme interpretation, then it would have to apply per the regulation to “ALL INVESTED CAPITAL”. The regulation does not justify applying 8 CFR 204.6 (g)(1) to non-EB-5 capital only, and using it just to hassle stand-alone petitioners, as has been occurring in I-526 Requests for Evidence issued since May 2019.

USCIS does not deny or revoke the I-526 for EB-5 investor A if EB-5 investor B in the same NCE is found to have a problem. Apparently recognizing that B’s identity and funds are not pertinent to A’s eligibility, USCIS does not ask regional center Petitioner A to identify EB-5 investor B or to validate B’s lawful funds – either in the Form I-526 or in RFE. How then is it reasonable in the standalone context for USCIS to interrogate EB-5 Investor A in RFE about Investor B, predicating A’s eligibility on B?

The basic unreasonableness and lack of justification in the request helps to explain why the Form I-526,  I-526 Instructions, and published policy and filing tips say nothing about evidence to be provided by a petitioner to USCIS for other NCE investors and their source of funds. With no such evidence officially or publicly required, NCEs and petitioners have no way no know when filing I-526 what evidence may be requested, and adjudicators are left to individual caprice in issuing evidence requests. For example, from a sample of four RFEs issued to standalone investors in December 2019, one RFE asks for government ID or business registration document for each other NCE owner, one RFE asks for ID documents plus filed income taxes for each other NCE owner, one RFE asks for ID documents plus narrative description of business activities corroborated by “complete bank statements” for each other NCE owner, and one RFE does not ask about source of funds for non-EB-5 NCE owners. Is this not the definition of arbitrary and capricious processing? Even if such evidence were likely to be available to a petitioner post-hoc from independent parties not seeking immigration benefits. How do evidence requests that are unsupported in theory, unevenly applied, unprecedented in prior practice, impractical in fact, and undisclosed except in a few RFEs support program integrity? These RFEs clearly reflect an error that IPO should correct quickly in order to protect credibility and avoid litigation.

Suzanne Lazicki     Lucid Professional Writing
(626) 660-4030       Cell, WhatsApp, Telegram
suzanne@lucidtext.com
2314 Washington Blvd., Ogden, UT 84401
www.lucidtext.com/

Filed under EB-5 Law & Policy

Regional center program authorization and USCIS stabilization

October 1, 2020 Leave a comment

Today begins Fiscal Year 2021. The good news is that the government remains funded and the regional center program remains authorized at least until December 11, 2020 thanks to the H.R.8337 –  Continuing Appropriations Act, 2021 and Other Extensions Act signed early this morning by President Trump. Assuredly no one in government spared a thought for EB-5 this year. The regional center program regularly gets extended as part of the appropriations process unless someone goes out of the way to change it. Such out-of-the-way effort is unlikely considering other issues competing for attention in Washington, and considering that USCIS already accomplished by regulation the major “reforms” that previously motivated EB-5 legislation. Regional center program authorization might be drama-free, these days, if only the appropriations process were drama-free. My chart of regional center authorizations since 2016 does not reflect disputes about regional center authorization, but rather repeated breakdowns in the overall effort to keep the government funded. Each of the PLs in the chart represents an appropriations act or a continuing resolution on appropriations.

Under normal circumstances, we’d be starting FY2021 with funding for FY2021. As it is, we have a continuing resolution that extends the deadline on FY2020 appropriations for another few months, at which time Congress may manage a funding bill through September 2021 – or more likely, another continuing resolution or two. Meanwhile, I don’t expect legislative changes specific to EB-5 any time soon. (FYI this July 2020 IIUSA webinar gave a very interesting look behind the scenes of EB-5 advocacy for long-term authorization and program improvements, and insight into the lack of results.)

In addition to extension of regional center program authorization (in Division A on p 2 – see my Washington updates page for specific language if you’re interested), H.R.8337 includes the Emergency Stopgap USCIS Stabilization Act (in Section 2 Division D Title I, starting on p. 30). This piece of legislation cleverly responds to USCIS’s request for a Congressional bailout by calling on USCIS to raise funds the way it’s supposed to: by collecting fees for services. I avoided talking about this before it was passed, because the legislation could’ve been controversial.  USCIS is apparently trying to get away from providing services to immigrants, and would prefer to be funded by the American taxpayer. The Emergency Stopgap USCIS Stabilization Act authorizes USCIS to sell immigrants a new product at an increased price; specifically, authorizing USCIS to expand and increase the fee for premium processing.  The previous law at 8 U.S.C. 1356(u) had generally authorized USCIS to collect a premium fee of $1,000 for “employment-based petitions and applications.” The Emergency Stopgap USCIS Stabilization Act gives a more specific list of authorized benefit types (including specifically name-checking EB-1, EB-2, and EB-3 through the reference to “aliens described in paragraph (1), (2), or (3) of section 203(b)”), and raises the authorized fee to $2,500. EB-5 is not specifically mentioned in the new law, but also not excluded from premium processing by the original law. USCIS would apparently not need additional authorization from Congress to offer premium processing for EB-5, which falls under the long-authorized category of “employment-based petitions and applications.” However, the long-standing and likely-to-continue barrier in EB-5’s case has been USCIS, which has repeatedly declined to offer premium processing for I-526, I-924, or I-829. (For a recent example, see p. 6 of Sarah Kendall’s remarks at the October 29, 2019 IIUSA industry forum.) USCIS must guess that 99.9% of EB-5 applicants would take the service if offered, making the service difficult to deliver.

I’ll be very interested to see how USCIS responds to this legislation. The new law authorizes but does not compel USCIS to expand and raise fees for a popular discretionary service. Will USCIS actually do this for the sake of budget-stabilizing new fee revenue? Or will the agency continue to sit back and not offer fee-generating services while still complaining to Congress about budgetary problems? Just this week, USCIS posted another statement on budget issues, this time responding to a preliminary injunction enjoining the new fee rule that would have taken effect and raised fees across form types starting October 2, 2020.

My favorite part of the Emergency Stopgap USCIS Stabilization Act is this paragraph at the end, with the welcome title “reporting requirements.”

SEC. 4103. REPORTING REQUIREMENTS.
(a) IN GENERAL.—Not later than 180 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Secretary of Homeland Security shall provide to the appropriate Committees a 5-year plan, including projected cost estimates, procurement strategies, and a project schedule with milestones, to accomplish each of the following:
(1) Establish electronic filing procedures for all applications and petitions for immigration benefits.
(2) Accept electronic payment of fees at all filing locations.
(3) Issue correspondence, including decisions, requests for evidence, and notices of intent to deny, to immigration benefit requestors electronically.
(4) Improve processing times for all immigration and naturalization benefit requests.

Filed under EB-5 Law & Policy