IPO employee terminations, and why people are important

[3/4 UPDATE: I am happy to see the report that OPM walks back memo on firing probationary employees, leaving decision to agencies. 3/17 UPDATE: USCIS announced Probationary Reinstatements. I’m thankful that IPO can keep as many as possible of its valuable employees.]

Last week the media reported mass firings at DHS, and I can confirm that the USCIS Investor Program Office is affected. Since 2022 IPO has been striving to get staffed up again, hiring for 60 vacancies to reach its previously-authorized level of 237 staff, plus additional positions to support new workloads created as a result of the EB-5 Reform and Integrity Act. The hiring surge I reported in 2023 was ultimately successful. But the recent staff up unfortunately means that a number of IPO employees are newly hired, thus still in probationary periods, thus now on the chopping block. I can’t report total termination numbers yet for IPO, just going from anecdotal evidence, but I see that OPM directs agencies to fire government workers still on probation.

Terminating staff at the USCIS Investor Program Office is wrong as a budgetary measure, wrong for enforcement, and wrong for the economy.

USCIS employee payroll is not funded by taxpayers/the government but by filing fees collected from immigrants, so firing USCIS employees has no impact on the federal budget and saves taxpayers no money. (Indeed terminating IPO employees specifically could have a negative budgetary effect, because EB-5 filing fees are set intentionally very high to not only fully cover EB-5 adjudication costs but also help support non-fee-funded agency costs. Creating EB-5 processing problems could discourage those high-fee forms — not to mention the job-creating investments that occasion such forms to be filed.)

IPO employees represent “The Wall” between EB-5 investors and a chance to immigrate, and are also responsible for realizing nearly every integrity provision in the EB-5 Reform and Integrity Act of 2022. Without IPO employees there are no EB-5 audits, no security checks, no review of disclosures, no review of registrations, no review of job creation claims, no sanctions, and fraud gets to hide indefinitely in dark warehouses for lack of staff to pull out and review files. It’s not as if the EB-5 train can be stopped by terminating USCIS employees: regional centers are still free to raise money and EB-5 investors can still get work authorization and parole just based on filing petitions, even if no one at IPO reviews and approves or denies the EB-5 petitions. What’s reduced, by terminating employees, is oversight for immigrant investment.

IPO employees help make the difference between function and dysfunction for EB-5 as a job-creating investment program. When Alissa Emmel held her first stakeholder meeting as IPO Chief in April 2022, IPO was at rock bottom with 177 employees who had adjudicated fewer than 600 forms in the most recent quarter (and received barely over 800 forms). After two years under Ms. Emmel’s leadership, and since hiring scores of employees, IPO has been completing nearly 4,000 forms per quarter (and receiving over 2,000 forms). Immense improvement, thanks to new people! I apologize for doubting you at the time, Chief Emmel. You accomplished what you promised, though even more work is needed to maximize EB-5 program potential. Who wins, if progress to date is lost by terminating the people who created it? As Chief Emmel explained in October 2022, “Combined with filling vacant positions, proper staffing will allow us to decrease the backlog of pending EB-5 petitions, work toward meeting new statutory processing time goals and implement other provisions under the new EB-5 law, and perform other necessary administrative functions such as data entry for new applications and petitions.” And new hires at IPO represent a major investment of resources – according to the CIS Ombudsman, it takes an average 241 days to move a new USCIS adjudicator from hiring decision to completion of basic training. What a waste, to lose that investment.

I have encouraged terminated IPO employees to contact IIUSA with their stories. Just in case advocacy can help to stem the termination tide, and prevent the Administration from unintentionally reducing oversight and enforcement for immigration and from gutting a job-creating investment program.