IPO is hiring! (Insights from job postings)
June 12, 2023 19 Comments
Post last updated: July 11, 2023
How and when will EB-5 processing improve? Good news: the USCIS Immigrant Investor Program Office is expanding its workforce. I am encouraged by the 21 alerts that I’ve received since August 2022 from USAjobs.gov for job openings at IPO, and to see that new job descriptions include words like “achieve efficiency,” “provide customer service,” and “respond to inquiries.” EB-5 processing times exploded in recent years primarily because IPO has had fewer people working less productively on EB-5 forms. Recent job postings provide hope that a larger staff and process improvements will eventually result in improved outcomes.
Job descriptions offer a view into the workings of an organization. They describe activities that the organization plans to undertake, reflect priorities, and provide insight into internal processes. They’re also helpful as a picture of the audience for EB-5 documents. As I write business plans to be reviewed by adjudication officers, it helps to know the officer’s qualifications, job description, and organizational context.
To facilitate analysis, I compiled and am sharing a compilation of IPO job postings in 2022/2023. My document lists all open positions during the past year, with duties and qualifications for each, and links to the original job postings (as saved in my files, since most are no longer live at USAjobs.gov). You’re welcome.
For this post, I’ll comment on a few questions that can be addressed with reference to recent job postings.
- What are IPO’s growth plans and priorities?
Hiring in 2022/2023 shows that IPO is pursuing plans to increase the number of adjudicators, improve records management, explore process efficiencies, formulate new policies and procedures, respond to more inquiries, and address regional center compliance.
Job descriptions in 2022/2023 show that “integrity” remains a dominant value at IPO, with adjudicator job duties and qualifications focused on fraud detection and prevention. However, the words “efficiency” and “productivity” also appear several times, and four positions even include “customer service” among the required competencies.
- What change can we expect from IPO?
If the job duties described in the 2022/2023 IPO job postings are actually performed, then we can expect a number of developments.
We will have policy for regional center compliance. (This promises to take time, since the three positions responsible to oversee and supervise regional center compliance and develop regional center compliance policy are all newly recruited in the past six months. But at least job postings show wheels in motion.)
IPO will have a wealth of recommendations for operating procedures. Eleven of the advertised positions include this among the job duties. Also, a vast quantity of research will be generated and turned into internal reports and briefings that may eventually translate into improvements. I’m particularly cheering for the Management and Program Analyst tasked “to improve productivity and increase the quality of work directed.”
IPO will have a better handle on its records and be better able to make reports and respond to inquiries. Five of the advertised positions are primarily occupied with records management. These positions might be needless if only IPO had halfway decent IT and database systems, but expensive humans are better than nothing.
Customer service may marginally improve. IPO has recruited one person for an “inquiry management unit” tasked to “resolve customer and organizational issues including applying and interpreting advanced knowledge of immigration laws, regulations, and policies using USCIS systems and mailboxes” – which sounds like it should mean more than repeatedly cutting and pasting “Good afternoon, Your inquiry has been forwarded for review, Thank you,” as the current mailbox staff does. IPO has also recruited for several staff devoted to FOIA requests, and for a quality manager whose duties include “providing customer service to internal and external customers.”
IPO’s in-person office – the one that’s apparently hardly used since all employee positions are telework eligible – will be nice and secure thanks to two new employees who will make over $100,000 a year each to manage physical security, facilities planning, fleet management, and health and safety.
- What’s missing in the 2022/2023 IPO job postings? What’s unlikely to change, according to the job postings?
The newly-staffed IPO promises no more real world experience and no more legal or financial expertise than it has today. None of the advertised positions asked for any educational qualifications in immigration law, securities law, business, or finance. None asked for experience with business or investment. The only position with any educational qualification was Economist, and even that could satisfy the math component with three semester hours of calculus. With the exception of a low-level clerical position, none of the positions posted was open to the public. Many jobs were posted as open exclusively to current USCIS employees, and all (except the secretaries) were limited to current or former federal employees, with some flexibility for veterans, military spouses, and Peace Corps. USCIS is taking care to protect the ivory tower of IPO from practical EB-5 experience or industry involvement. “Organizational awareness” was explicitly mentioned as a required competency in some job descriptions, and a clear priority throughout. IPO is evidently not trying to bring a bit of Commerce, the Small Business Administration, or the SEC under the USCIS umbrella, though that would help to handle the investment component of immigrant investment. USCIS is evidently still only trying to be itself – an agency that grants immigration benefits and hires specifically for experience with applying and enforcing immigration law. This fact limits how much sophistication or effectiveness we can expect from IPO when it comes to evaluating EB-5 investor petitions or overseeing the regional center industry.
EB-5 Reform and Integrity Act implementation does not dominate recent IPO job postings. IPO advertised a “few” vacancies for adjudicators to judge regional center applications, and for three managers to work with regional center compliance. But generally, the advertised job openings are not obviously specific to new processes or requirements associated with RIA. There’s no evidence in the job postings that IPO is creating new divisions specific to the new EB-5 forms, or significantly increasing policy staff. At best, this lack might mean that USCIS has already reallocated existing experienced staff to handle new RIA tasks.
IPO organization has been heavily weighted with administrative and ancillary staff. As of October 2022, IPO reported 216 employees, of which about 40 were assigned to I-526 and 35 to I-829, while the remaining 65% of EB-5-fee-funded employees bustled about doing things other than adjudicate investor petitions. New job postings likewise offer plenty of non-adjudicative work. IPO is not quite the hospital with 300 busy administrative staff and no doctors or medical service as described in Yes Minister, but it’s on the spectrum. In theory, IPO exists to process EB-5 forms, just as a hospital exists to heal the sick. In practice, IPO processing output has been very low for an office with 200+ employees mostly earning $100,000+ per year each. I hope that in the future, we will increasingly see IPO employees and job duties involved with adjudication.
Overview of job openings at the USCIS Investor Program Office September 2022 to the present (See my compilation document for detail and links to the original job postings. Note that I will continue to update this document as I am alerted to additional job postings.)
| Position title | Job Posting | Primary duty |
| Management and Program Analyst | Two vacancies posted June 2023 | Administrative support: asset management, facilities |
| Auditor | “Few” vacancies posted June 2023 | Enforcement: Audit regional centers |
| Program Manager | 1 vacancy posted June 2023 | Administrative support: provide financial, human capital, and administrative oversight |
| Program Manager | 1 vacancy posted June 2023 | Adjudication Support: Oversee adjudications |
| Adjudication Officer | “Many” vacancies posted March 2023 and May 2023 | Adjudication: Grant or deny petitions |
| Adjudication Officer (Regional Center) | “Few” vacancies posted January 2023 | Adjudication: Grant or deny regional center applications |
| Adjudication Officer (Quality Assurance) | 1 vacancy posted January 2023 | Adjudication support: Review adjudicative decisions |
| Economist | “Few” vacancies posted May 2023 | Adjudication support: Conduct and apply economic research |
| Supervisory Adjudication Officer | 1 vacancy posted December 2022 | Adjudication support: Supervise adjudicators |
| Adjudication Officer (Inquiry Management) | 1 vacancy posted June 2023 | Customer service: Oversee and resolve case inquiries |
| Immigration Services Analyst | “Few” vacancies posted May 2023 | Customer service: Handle FOIA request response |
| Program Manager (Compliance) | 1 vacancy posted December 2022 | Policy: Oversee the development of policies for regional center compliance. |
| Supervisory Adjudication Officer | 1 vacancy posted January 2023 | Policy: Supervise a team responsible for developing policy, serve as subject matter expert |
| Supervisory Adjudication Officer | 1 vacancy posted April 2023 | Policy: Oversee the division developing regional center compliance. |
| Management and Program Analyst (Quality) | 2 vacancies posted January 2023 | Administrative support: Analyze processes to improve productivity and increase quality. |
| Management and Program Analyst (Data) | 1 vacancy posted June 2023 | Administrative support: Work on data integrity and process improvements |
| Supervisory Records and Information Management Specialist | 2 vacancies posted October 2022 | Administrative support: Provide direction for records and information management |
| Immigration Services Analyst | 3 vacancies posted June 2023 | Administrative support: Work with records (handling data, project management) |
| Immigration Services Analyst: Office Automation | “Many” vacancies posted September 2022 | Administrative support: Clerical duties |
| Supervisory Management and Program Analyst (Facilities) | 1 vacancy posted September 2022 | Administrative support: Work on facilities and physical plant issues |
| Management and Program Analyst (Facilities) | 1 vacancy posted December 2022 | Administrative support: Work on facilities and physical plant issues |
EB-5 Updates 
Thank you!
How about NVC? Do you expect them to work faster now? We submitted all our civic documents on 2 May by courier and still not received any reply from NC even their website indicated that they are already reviewing documents submitted on a later date then.
Our attorney told us that we might have to wait for 3-5 months for NVC to come back. Is it really that long? We are from Hong Kong and there is no backlog.
Thanks!
The delay is not with NVC, the problem is USCIS transferring the files to NVC. This is a long-standing problem and your attorney’s advice is correct.
According to the minutes of a recent AILA (American immigration Lawyers Association) meeting with NVC, EB5 files are transferred by email. As they are originally submitted on paper, and can sometimes run to thousands of pages, my guess is that the problem lies in the digitizing process. I also surmise that digitizing adjudicated petitions comes very low on the list of IPO priorities, hence these unacceptable delays. I imagine some poor, harassed intern manually scanning each page on an ancient computer but I really hope I’m wrong!
AILA has complained about this to NVC many times, but since the problem lies with USCIS, there is not much that NVC can do about it.
Apologies, Johnny, I may have misinterpreted your post. I’m referring to delays prior to the DS260 stage, but on re-reading what you said, it appears you may already have submitted DS260, sorry.
Yes, DS-260 was submitted in Mar 2023 and all civil documents on May 2. We just need NVC to formally inform us that we are “documentarily qualified” and right in the line for interview. Unfortunately, it has been more than 1.5 months and we still hear nothing from NVC. Our kids are studying abroad, they might have to be absent from schools for interview if it did not happen over this summer break. Quite an annoying situation for us indeed. Cheers
Please check if you have to email them..we had a delay of over 7 months because of this.
Hi Bagabond,
Thank you for sharing ur experiences.congratulations for ur interview. But sorryfor retrogression.
I would like to tell u something about us. Plz help me in finding way out.
Im also an investor from india.
Pd Dec 2018
Approval 21Dec 2022
Recieved mail from nvc 11May 2023
June 2023 our attorney post our documents by physical mail.
But i read ur prevoius comment as per ur experience we need to send our documents by email.can u please share email account to send the documents.As my attorney said that there’s no way out other than sending by mail cause nvc hasnt mentioned any thing in letter or at website regarding this.
I will be highly obliged to u.
Thank you
Hi Bagabond,
Thank you for sharing ur experiences.congratulations for ur interview. But sorry for retrogression. This thing also stressed me out.
I would like to tell u something about us. Plz help me in finding way out.
Im also an investor from india.
Pd Dec 2018
Approval 21Dec 2022
Recieved mail from nvc 11May 2023
June 2023 our attorney post our documents by physical mail.
But i read ur prevoius comment as per ur experience we need to send our documents by email.can u please share email account to send the documents.As my attorney said that there’s no way out other than sending by mail cause nvc hasnt mentioned any thing in letter or at website regarding this.
I will be highly obliged to u.
Thank you
Hi hariomshelly,
The email address is NVCElectronic@state.gov. We did not receive any response from NVC for about 6 months after physically sending them the civil documents. The welcome letter did not state anything and we reached out to a Congressman who helped us get a response from NVC stating that our case was subject to electronic processing. Hope this helps… please let me know if I can be of more help. Cheers and good luck!
We just got a reply from NVC today. They stated that they are not able to review our documents as we did not also email them! What the hell. Our lawyer still insisted that NVC stopped receiving documents via emails for years, the only way is to mail. Also, we are not allowed to simply upload our documents to our CEAC online account. The processing is just so confusing that leaving us in no where excepting wasting more & more time. NVC needs to let us know whether our case would be manually processed or electronically. If electronically, why we are not able to upload our documents directly to our CEAC account? Is it because we have a lawyer representing us?
Hi bagabond,
Thanks a lot for being so informative.i just talked to my attorney n she said NVC has mentioned in welcome letter to send documents by mail.if we will send them by email, that will cause delay in processing.
Feeling so confused..dont know where to go..whom to believe..we can only do one thing that is WAIT.
Fingers crossed.
Did you ever check with NVC by submitting a public inquiry form? They would reply and tell you what the true problem is.
When enquired through the public inquiry form, NVC did not indicate specifically that documents have not been received via email. They twice gave a generic response stating one of the following has not been completed: Filling up DS-260 or civil documents submission or etc etc…
Excellent piece, as always. Thank you, Suzanne.
Hi Johnny,
That’s a great idea..will try this.. will get back to u.
Thank you.
NVC usually would reply within 1-2 weeks upon receiving your inquiry submitted through the public inquiry form. They shall let you know why your case is still not processed. Cheers
Great info Suzanne as always. It is clear that the USCIS is not looking to hire any outsiders to drive real change to the organization, other than for the adjudicator role. I hope their strategy pans out because otherwise they will only be increasing their overhead costs.
Thank you for your informative post. I am waiting for my I-829 adjudication for the last almost 4 years. Your email gives a hope of some better and faster rate of turnover of such cases.
A few points about IPO hiring:
1. When I was an adjudicator there, we were told (can’t remember the context) that hiring from within USCIS was a morale issue. They don’t want to discourage existing personnel from trying to advance by jumping over them, and bringing in outsiders.
2. For an adjudicator-type, IPO is a kind of dead end, because as a GS-14 (pretty much the highest adjudicator) there is very little practical experience to get you promoted to outside of IPO, and nowhere to goi inside IPO.
3. You need to look at the GS level of the job postings to see the level of talent they are bringing in. Most of these positions are GS 12 or below. That is not very high in the pecking order. Do not expect change to be generated by these folks.
As you can imagine, the combination of 1 and 2 above isn’t promising. Until political will is focused on improving IPO, the organizational reality will preserve the unsatisfactory status quo.
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