USCIS Immigrant Investor Program
(EB-5) Stakeholder Engagement

USCIS Processing Times Webpage Redesign

From: ProcessingTimesFeedback <ProcessingTimesFeedback@uscis.dhs.gov>
Sent: May 11, 2022 5:18 PM
To: Suzanne Lazicki <suzanne@lucidtext.com>
Subject: RE: USCIS Processing Times Webpage Redesign Webinar

Excellent feedback!

Thank you,

USCIS

From: Suzanne Lazicki <suzanne@lucidtext.com>
Sent: May 11, 2022 4:54 PM
To: ‘ProcessingTimesFeedback@uscis.dhs.gov’ <ProcessingTimesFeedback@uscis.dhs.gov>
Subject: USCIS Processing Times Webpage Redesign Webinar

Thank you for the opportunity to provide feedback for the USCIS Processing Times Webpage Redesign Webinar to be held on May 12, 2022. I appreciated the announcement on May 5 that USCIS is Simplifying, Improving Communication of Case Processing Data. I would like to point out the following issues that make the new processing times report design not clear, not transparent, not meaningful, and not helpful.

1. The https://egov.uscis.gov/processing-times/ page now reports a number that is apparently arbitrary. What is relevant about 80%? Why not report the median age of recent completions? (The USCIS historical processing times report gives the median, which is logically more indicative of “normal” and “average” processing.) Why not the first and third quartile? (That would at least be meaningful statistically.) Why not 93%? (Significant if the threshold for case inquiry.) What possible justification/explanation is there for choosing to report 80% on this page? Unless explained, it would appear the USCIS chose 80% to 1) cover up the major deviations from FIFO processing that had been exposed by the previous “estimated time range” method, 2) prevent petitioner inquiries by not reporting median or average processing, and 3) confuse and disguise the derivation of the Case Inquiry Date, which is not calculated from the 80% month.  I suggest that this page would be more meaningful if it reported the median (or even better, the median and the average) age of recently-adjudicated cases. The number of months used to calculate the Case Inquiry Date should also be disclosed.
2. The https://egov.uscis.gov/processing-times/ page is not clear or transparent about the Case Inquiry Date – the single most important piece of information on the page. The “get inquiry date” tool on this page uses a month multiplier that is not disclosed, and is not equal to the 80% month reported on the page. The page vaguely says “we only allow inquiries for cases that are well outside the processing time listed above.”  To be transparent, this page needs to state “93% of recent adjudications were completed within ___ months,” and then explain that this number of months is used to calculate the case inquiry date.
3. The case inquiry date and answer to the question “When can I ask about my case” are both unreasonable.   To protect USCIS from Mandamus litigation (which must be much more expensive to the agency than individual inquiries), the processing times report needs to define a reasonable boundary for “normal” processing. Outside the 93^rd percentile is too-obviously a boundary for extreme outliers, not a definition of what’s normal – especially given the well-documented spread of processing times. For example, for Form I-829, the historical times page gives a median of 41.5 months in 2022, and the I-829 Case Inquiry Date is calculated at 64.8 months. What judge will believe that a I-829 petitioner should have to wait 15 months longer than the median processing time to even inquire about case status? The 64.8-month case inquiry boundary in the processing times report is too-blatantly unreasonable, and appears to be arbitrarily set to prevent inquires.
4. Strictly speaking, the processing times report simply and only reports past performance. But the USCIS Report and More Info pages do not speak strictly, but as if the past performance numbers were true for all time and predictive for the future.
   1. “We display case processing times for select forms and locations to let you know how long it generally takes to process benefit requests.” This sentence conflates “how long it has recently taken” with “how long it generally takes.” This conflation is false and misleading, implying a status quo where none exists. USCIS has a history of large processing time fluctuations, and actively plans on processing time changes going forward. The sentence had better be “We display case processing times for select forms and locations to let you know how long it has recently taken to process benefit requests.”
   2. “80% of cases are completed within”  This language is misleading, when in fact the number only represents “the amount of time it took us to complete 80% of adjudicated cases over the last six months.” At minimum, the verb “are” should be replaced with “were” or “have been.” Or could replace “80% of cases are completed within”  with “80% of recent adjudications completed were within”
   3. “The earliest you can submit questions is _____. Please do not contact us before this date.” This statement has two problems: it directly uses past performance to predict future results, and it implies that the date given in the sentence is a firm barrier not subject to constant change. The sentence copies the time it took to complete 93% of adjudications over the past six months and pastes it into the future, which is only meaningful if USCIS plans for no improvements over past performance. But USCIS does plan improvements, so the prediction is not meaningful. And it is not even a prediction, given that a petitioner consulting the page from month to month will see the “earliest you can submit questions” sentence populated with ever-changing dates that fluctuate forward and backward in time depending on recent adjudications. To make the sentence transparent and meaningful, better to say something like “You may not submit questions until your case has been pending longer than __% of recent adjudications. If your receipt date is before _______, you may submit questions.” It’s meaningless to give a sentence that predicts a future date, if the given date is not actually intended or usable as a prediction.
5. USCIS announced new cycle time goals on March 29, 2022 for multiple forms. If USCIS is serious about making progress toward these cycle time goals, and willing to be transparent and responsible to the public, USCIS should regularly publish current cycle times for those forms.

Responding to Direct EB-5 RFEs

In August 2021, the USCIS Investor Program Office approved only 16 I-526 petitions, but sent out 87 Requests for Evidence (RFE) on I-526. RFE response presents a strategic challenge and opportunity for petitioners: another chance to strengthen the basis for approval and to avoid adding basis for denial.

Most direct EB-5 RFEs ask about the business plan. By the time USCIS reviews I-526 years after filing, every I-526 business plan is deficient at least in the sense of being outdated. The adjudicator reviewing the I-526 does not only want to know what the plan used to be, but how the plan has turned out. A business plan may also be deficient in the sense of being incomplete – lacking validation, or lacking relevant detail about use of investment and job creation. In the worst case, a carelessly-prepared business plan may positively demonstrate that the EB-5 investment does not meet EB-5 requirements.  So what can be done, when USCIS sends an RFE that identifies “deficiencies,” states that “Petitioner has not established eligibility for the benefit sought” and warns “a petitioner may not make material changes to a petition that has already been filed in an effort to make an apparently deficient petition conform to [USCIS] requirements.” How can one correct deficiencies, and also not make material changes? It takes experience, care, and strategy.

Having helped with many RFE responses as a business plan writer, I see three strategic steps:

1. Identify the USCIS adjudicator’s specific concerns. It helps to be familiar with RFE template language, so that you can distinguish case-specific questions from the boilerplate content.
2. Regardless of the specific RFE questions, identify what the adjudicator needs to know about the enterprise, investment, and job creation order to approve the I-526.
3. Prepare an RFE response that addresses specific concerns, provides clarification and evidence to further support compliance with EB-5 requirements, and emphasizes the non-materiality of any changes from the information and evidence previously filed with Form I-526.

Step 1: Identify Explicit Adjudicator Concerns

I start by looking at the RFE and asking myself: “What does the adjudicator think is deficient about this I-526 petition?” Note that business plan-related questions that the adjudicator wrote for the RFE are normally located between these two template sentences: “Upon reviewing the business plan, USCIS finds that the evidence in the record does not establish that the business plan is Matter of Ho compliant” and “For the reasons identified above, the business plan is not credible.” Everything before that first and after that second sentence in the job creation/business plan section is normally template content: generic language that’s simply cut and pasted verbatim into every RFE job creation section. The template content is there for reference, and not necessarily a question or concern. Petitioners tend to be particularly spooked by a 2-3-page list of bullet points for business plan content, with item requests in categories from “Market Analysis” down to “Projections.” That list is in the RFE because it’s part of the RFE template (and I’ve seen versions of it since at least 2012). That list may or may not be in your RFE because the adjudicator read your business plan and found it to be deficient on any of those bullet points.

Step 2: Identify Underlying Eligibility Issues

Strategy does not stop with identifying specific questions in the RFE.  Lazy adjudicators are known to send RFEs with no case-specific questions at all – just an uncustomized RFE template. I’ve seen two such RFEs in the last month – a hint that the adjudicator didn’t even really look at the I-526 record yet, but just sent a generic RFE to get the ball out of the court for awhile. Or, sometimes RFEs specifically request evidence that does not exist for the particular business. Or the petitioner may know of clarifications that need to be added to the I-526 record, although the RFE didn’t request them. So it’s wise to not only react to specific RFE requests, but to stand back and think about the basic eligibility issues, and what can best be added to the I-526 record to support eligibility for I-526 approval and the road ahead.

For example, when an RFE asks for an improved business plan, the eligibility issue is job creation. An improved plan may not be necessary if it’s now possible to replace business plan predictions with the even more compelling job creation evidence of payroll records for employees already hired. When an RFE asks for supply contracts, the eligibility issue is whether the business is viable and active, to be able to create and sustain jobs. So if the business does not have supply contracts, the petitioner can think of other evidence to address the underlying concerns about business activity and feasibility. When the adjudicator was too lazy to look at the I-526 record and ask specific questions, the petitioner can still grasp the RFE opportunity to preemptively provide relevant answers.

For a recent RFE response, I worked with the client to prepare a business plan addendum designed to clarify ambiguities in the I-526 record and to explain COVID-19-related business plan adjustments in context of on-going eligibility. The client had received a generic RFE, with no specific questions about I-526 inconsistencies or subsequent developments. We responded by giving the adjudicator the correct and up-to-date information that we knew he’d need to understand and approve the petition, hopefully preempting confusion and challenge.  

EB-5 eligibility on the project side comes down to three things: (1) investment (2) in a new commercial enterprise (3) that creates jobs. Regardless of what specific items an RFE may request, the I-526 should be approved if the record manages to provide clarity and a preponderance of evidence for eligibility on those three basic points.

Step 3: Avoid Material Change Challenges

Many RFEs include this language in the “Conclusion” section, to remind petitioners of the peril in submitting new information.

If Petitioner submits updated or revised documents, please note that “[a] petitioner must establish eligibility at the time of filing; a petition cannot be approved at a future date after the petitioner becomes eligible under a new set of facts. See Matter of Katigbak, 14 I&N Dec. 45, 49 (Comm. 1971). Therefore, a petitioner may not make material changes to a petition that has already been filed in an effort to make an apparently deficient petition conform to [USCIS] requirements.” Matter of Izummi, 22 I&N Dec. 169, 175 (Assoc. Comm’r 1998); see also 8 C.F.R 103.2(b)(1).

To navigate this Catch-22 for RFE business plan updates, the business plan writer should (1) know what was in the filed I-526, (2) take care to present new facts in context of continuity with the original I-526 filing, and (3) be able to support the basic message that the investment was eligible at the time of filing and remains eligible to this day, even through business developments and document updates. A good RFE business plan update takes care and labor, because it looks backward as well as forward. I start by reading the thousands of pages originally filed with I-526, so that I know where consistency can be highlighted and where new information needs explanation.  I do not only read the original business plan, because when USCIS says “business plan” they really mean “business plan plus supporting evidence,” and business plan updates involve supporting evidence as much as the document that says “business plan” on the cover.  

In the excitement of filing I-526, many people think about documents as mere formalities that exist to check boxes. I-526 can get filed with a document that says “business plan” on the cover, but that does not clarify and validate the specific business and how it meets EB-5 requirements. Unfortunately, some EB-5 business plan writers just specialize in business plan-like formatting, while others follow a snow job strategy of making the plan so confusing and long that the adjudicator will probably just approve it to avoid the work of wading through it.  But when an RFE comes, things get real. The I-526 RFE basically says “your business plan did not just check a box and I do actually want to understand it, and to be convinced that your specific investment qualified and still qualifies for EB-5.” At that point, it’s time to value a business plan with genuine business plan content and shaped by EB-5 expertise. And it’s time to look past the RFE questions and challenges to think through what specifically USCIS needs to know for the petition to succeed.

For more information, see my EB5 Investors Magazine article on Strategies for I-526 RFE business plan updates, and my RFE service page.

Visa Processing and I-829 investigation

Visas cannot be issued to regional center applicants while the regional center program is expired, but processing steps short of visa issuance can theoretically be taken, if USCIS and Department of State are willing. USCIS appears to be doing nothing with pending regional center I-485, but Department of State confirms that it is still working on regional center visa application documents — at least for now. The following Q&A is transcribed from minute 17:30 of the Youtube Chat With Charlie for the September 2021 Visa Bulletin.

Q: Is NVC still processing the documents that are being submitted by R5 and I5 applicants who were previously contacted despite those preferences having expired as of June 30?

A: The answer is yes, at this time the National Visa Center has not implemented any type of changes and continues to be processing the cases submitted by R5 and I5 applicants who were previously contacted. These procedures remain under constant review and they may need to be changed if Congress does not authorize an extension of the I5 and R5 categories in the future.

[September 7, 2021 Update: I’m told that NVC has started sending emails with this content, contradicting what Oppenheim said in the chat.

“The EB-5 category pilot program has expired as of June 30, 2021, for applicants seeking a visa under the Regional Center Program.
This includes the following visa categories:

• I5, for an investor Pilot Program in a targeted area
• R5, for an investor Pilot Program not in a targeted area

The National Visa Center (NVC) will not act on any new or pending EB-5 visa petitions as described above until further notice. Please do not submit any additional fees or forms to NVC.

If this visa program is extended by Congress, new notification letters will be sent to all case parties. Unfortunately, we cannot predict when a decision will be made. All previously submitted fee payments will remain valid if this program is extended in the future.”]

Other insights from the September and August Chats with Charlie: USCIS is expected to use the Dates for Filing chart for all EB categories in October 2021, no EB categories that aren’t already current are expected to become current in FY2022, Vietnam EB-5 is expected to remain Current throughout FY2022, and only China is expected to have a Final Action Date for EB-5 in FY2022. Mr. Oppenheim stated that he is moving dates based on the numbers theoretically available, despite the pandemic restricting visa issuance in practice. He noted the large EB visa limit for FY2022 (262,288, which would mean a record 18,622 visas theoretically available to EB-5), and also: more numbers available doesn’t necessarily mean more visas can be processed, considering staffing constraints and on-going COVID-19 restrictions.

With the USCIS Investor Program Office currently having little to do but work on Form I-829, I’m trying to find out whether they are, indeed, working on I-829, and more about the I-829 inventory. If you have a Form I-829 pending, or recently approved or denied, could you share a couple details about your case status and experience? I have set up a quick Google Form. (Or if you’d like to share info outside the form, just email me at suzanne@lucidtext.com, or Telegram to 626.660.4030.) Thanks!

Direct EB-5 Resources

The permanent direct EB-5 program has been the focus of new interest, now that the regional center program has expired until the industry can agree on legislation that Congress will agree to pass. Direct EB-5 offers valuable opportunities, and many challenges.

I will write more as time permits, but for the moment note that I have a detailed and well-documented Direct EB-5 Page to address questions about how direct EB-5 works.

I mention this page again, because I am receiving advertisements for direct EB-5 deals that appear non-compliant. I can see that the promoters are accustomed to regional center EB-5, and have not thought through all the implications of a basic direct EB-5 difference: that the New Commercial Enterprise and the Job-Creating Entity must be formally one and the same, meaning that all NCE requirements also apply to the JCE and vice versa. This well-known structural fact has a cascade of less-obvious practical consequences for direct as opposed to regional center EB-5, including differences with respect to preexisting business investment, investment terms, investment structure, investor role, investor source of funds, timing considerations, and exit options. (See my Direct EB-5 page for discussion and examples.)

Direct EB-5 is personal for me because I have written over a hundred direct EB-5 business plans – many of them in 2015-2017 during the surge of direct EB-5 demand that occurred around the last cliff-hanger regional center program sunset date in 2015. Every plan meant a business and entrepreneurs that I got to know, and it’s been satisfying and sometimes painful to follow their stories. I’ve had years now to watch outcomes unfold, in USCIS review and in business development. There have been successes I’d love to see again, and tears that I’d like to help avoid going forward. Everyone attempting direct EB-5, take time to educate yourselves. Work with people who have walked a distance on the direct EB-5 path, and learned the hard lessons of practical experience.

I’ll end with a chart that illustrates how the direct EB-5 opportunity has been used over the years, according to numbers of EB-5 visas issued. Note that direct EB-5 accounted for a majority of EB-5 visas until the regional center opportunity gained popularity following the financial crisis in 2008. Direct EB-5 got another boost around 2015, when the fight over regional center program authorization legislation encouraged people toward the relative stability of direct EB-5. That boost was gradually depressed by long processing times and practical challenges that particularly impact direct EB-5, combined with a complacency around short-term regional center program extensions. Direct EB-5 demand may revive again now in 2021, as the regional center program fights for authorization, and direct investors may be able to skip ahead in waiting lines and take advantage of a temporary window for reduced investment amounts. Note that direct EB-5 investors have historically been more tolerant of higher investment levels than regional center investors. A significant percentage of direct EB-5 visas to date were based on investments at the $1 million dollar level, even twenty years ago.

Ombudsman Meeting Input

2/2 Ombudsman Meeting

IIUSA has announced that its staff have been invited to a virtual meeting on February 2 with representatives from the Office of the Citizenship & Immigration Services (CIS) Ombudsman.

Ombudsman’s Office meets with stakeholder communities to hear about their concerns and identify issues with USCIS programs and processing. The Ombudsman then uses this input to make recommendations to USCIS to fix systemic problems and improve the quality of their services.

In preparation for this meeting, IIUSA is collecting comments and feedback on areas of concern that industry would like to be addressed at the upcoming meeting. You can send your comments to info@iiusa.org no later than Wednesday, January 20.  (Note that the CIS Ombudsman deals with USCIS specifically, not with consulates/Department of State and not with legislation.)

I am still thinking about my comments and questions, and invite you to help me. The CIS Ombudsman is most likely to note and act on problems that are systemic and widespread. So the strongest comments will be able to reference the specific experience of multiple witness. I made a Google Form designed to collect such experience, and I invite you to fill out the form with your input on processing issues encountered for I-526, I-485, I-829, etc.. This will save me the time of sorting through old blog comments to collect details from reader experience, and will help to shape and inform my thinking. (And of course, you can respond directly to IIUSA as well.) [Note: the form is now closed. Thank you to the 40 readers who submitted input. I summarized and used detail from your comments to craft the suggested questions I sent to IIUSA.]

Other Updates

Recent announcements on the USCIS News page may be relevant for some readers:

USCIS to Replace Sticker That Extends Validity of Green Cards (January 12, 2021)

USCIS Lockbox Updates (January 08, 2021) regarding delays in issuing receipt notices

USCIS Extends Flexibility for Responding to Agency Requests (December 18, 2020)

What is normal I-829 processing?

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!

Assessing EB-5 TEA Qualification (online tools)

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 20,00 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

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