Draft legislation, NYC lawsuit, SEC action, RC decision (Path America), RC list changes

New Policy (comments due)

Recall that Wednesday June 28 is the last day to submit comments responding to USCIS’s new policy language on redeployment I appreciate the AILA Comments on the Policy Manual, which explain where the policy goes wrong in imposing an “at risk” requirement after jobs have been created.

Analysis of Draft Legislation (IIUSA, NYU)

IIUSA issued a legislative update on June 22 that comments on draft bills from Senator Grassley/Leahy and Senator Cornyn. I appreciate IIUSA’s thoughtful analysis, and its difficult position when it comes to commenting on contentious issues. The Cornyn bill would make everyone in EB-5 happy by clarifying that investors only (not investors plus family members) should be counted toward the annual EB-5 visa quota. Its TEA proposals would create winners and confirm losers – the winners being projects in rural areas and on closed military bases (which would be incentivized with new visa set-asides) and the losers being projects in distressed high-unemployment urban areas (which would only get 13.5% discount from the standard investment amount). To be fair, the Cornyn proposal would make projects in distressed high-unemployment TEAs slightly more viable than they are currently, since 13.5% is better than 0% — the effective investment threshold differential if projects not in distressed areas can also get TEA designation. But overall the TEA proposal looks designed to support the status quo, with a large percentage of EB-5 investors going to projects in prosperous urban areas and closed military bases.

NYU Scholar-in-Residence Gary Friedland, Esq. and Professor Jeanne Calderon, Esq. have expanded their analysis of paths to TEA reform and other questions in the paper EB-5 Prescription for Reform: Legislation or Regulation? (Draft 6/19/17). The authors review perceived problems in the structure of TEA incentives, summarize proposed changes, and suggest that USCIS expedite reform by finalizing regulations, which could prompt the industry to unite in supporting comparatively moderate EB-5 legislation. The authors throw down a gauntlet by arguing that allocating 100% of job creation by an EB-5-funded project to EB-5 investors overstates the economic impact of EB-5 capital.  They clarify that they do not challenge USCIS’s job credit methodology, but only question citing USCIS job credit methodology as evidence of EB-5’s economic impact. This is a helpful distinction, but I don’t see reformers in Congress accepting it, or liking the idea that EB-5 investors might get credit in practice for job impacts not supported in theory. The industry needs to take up the gauntlet, and explain (preferably with reference to economic theory, practicality, and other programs that require job creation) why and how EB-5 job counts and allocations make sense.

NYC RC Investor Lawsuit

After receiving many error reports, USCIS pulled down their logs of EB-5 petition approvals and denials by regional center. I hope that the logs will be reposted soon with corrections, and in the meantime we can prepare to interpret the data. A natural conclusion could be: if X Regional Center has had many investor petitions approved, then it must be a reliable regional center with happy investors. Coincidentally, I heard in the same week that New York City Regional Center ranks #1 among regional centers for number of I-829 approvals and #5 for volume of I-526 approvals, and also that it is facing a lawsuit by over a hundred unhappy investors in the Battery Maritime Building project. Chen Dongwu et al. v. New York City Regional Center et al. claims that the investors’ “dream turned into a financial nightmare,” with fraudulent misrepresentations and subsequent coverups and fiduciary failures leading up to investors facing the loss of their entire investment.  Presumably the investors in this suit received I-526 approval, but USCIS adjudication is only part of EB-5 investment success.  I’ll look forward to seeing how New York City Regional Center responds to the allegations, which are a big story since this RC is such a big player in EB-5. At-risk investments inherently risk loss, and some will lose, and loss does not equal fraud. Risk does not equal license to shirk responsibility or deceive investors, however, and the defendants need to explain their side of the story. Future filings for the case can be accessed at the New York State Unified Court System website with Index Number 6520242017.

RC Termination Decision

The AAO decision Matter of P-A-K, LLC JUN092017_01K2610 denies motions to reconsider and reopen filed by Path America KingCo regional center.  This decision reiterates that termination decisions “take into account a variety of factors, both positive and negative, that encompass past, present, and likely future actions.” But having reviewed new evidence of the RC’s on-going projects, AAO apparently concludes — almost in so many words — that SEC action against a former principal for fraud and mismanagement is the kind of negative that cannot be outweighed by any number of positives in terms of current management and project progress and prospects. I trust that USCIS/AAO thinking will be challenged and will develop more nuance over time.

New SEC Action

Securities and Exchange Commission v. Seyed Taher Kameli, et al. is a new civil action involving a regional center. The Complaint filed June 22, 2017 alleges that Seyed Taher Kameli and his companies, Chicagoland Foreign Investment Group, LLC and American Enterprise Pioneers, Inc., falsely claimed to foreign investors that their investments would be used to fund an EB-5 qualifying project, but instead diverted millions of dollars to fund other projects, make unrelated payments, and for personal enrichment. As with other SEC actions on EB-5, conflicts of interest are the dominant red flag. The defendant Mr. Kameli controlled the regional center, investment funds, and job-creating enterprises, and also represented many investors as their immigration attorney. This kind of scenario should not be hard for future investors (or even legislators) to avoid.

RC List Changes

Additions to the USCIS Regional Center List, 6/6/2017 to 6/26/2017

• Art District Los Angeles Regional Center, LLC (California) Note: This is not a new RC, but recently added back to the approved list after having been briefly listed as a termination

New Terminations

• JI Northern Nevada Regional Center, LLC (Idaho, Nevada, Utah) Terminated 6/5/2017
• Dream Harbor Regional Center (Washington) Terminated 6/1/2017
• ON Regional Center, LLC (California) Terminated 6/16/2017
• Northeast Monument Regional Center LLC (Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island) Terminated 6/20/2017
• Rock Hill Regional Center LLC (New York) Terminated 6/1/2017
• Texas Mining & Resource Center, LLC (Texas) Terminated 6/20/2017
• Adirondack Regional Center of New York, LLC (New York) Terminated 5/24/2017
• Las Vegas EB-5 Inmigration, LLC (Nevada) Terminated 6/14/2017
• CIG Regional Center, LLC (California) Terminated 6/5/2017

I continue to update my Terminations Log, though USCIS has not yet posted any new letters for terminations since 2016.

Preventing fraud in EB-5 (CIIF investigation)

In his testimony before the House Judiciary Committee in February 2016, Investor Program Office Chief Nicholas Colucci discussed how much USCIS has done to improve its administration of the EB-5 program, with particular focus on adding resources to prevent the kind of fraud and abuse that can come with investment and immigration.

Over the past few years, USCIS has taken a number of steps to improve the administration of the EB-5 program. In 2013, USCIS realigned the EB-5 program into the Immigrant Investor Program Office, and relocated it from USCIS’ California Service Center, which adjudicates various immigration benefits, to Washington, D.C., with a Chief dedicated exclusively to EB-5 adjudications. As the United States Government Accountability Office (GAO) noted in its August 2015 report to Congressional requesters on the EB-5 program, this move was part of a restructuring to help USCIS better detect fraud. USCIS also created a Fraud Detection and National Security EB-5 Division (FDNS EB-5) and embedded its personnel within IPO to work alongside adjudications officers. Additionally, a dedicated team of attorneys from the USCIS Office of Chief Counsel advise on program-related legal matters. In staffing the IPO, USCIS has, and continues to invest in the specialties needed to manage the complex EB-5 caseload by hiring staff with expertise in economics, law, business, finance, securities and banking to review cases and to enhance consistency, timeliness, and integrity within the program….
USCIS has taken its responsibility to administer the EB-5 program very earnestly, through its specialized staffing devoted solely to this program and its extensive efforts to regulate the quickly growing regional center program. However, no agency can do this alone. The EB-5 program necessitates collaboration with several other agencies, and the establishment of IPO in Washington, D.C. allows USCIS to work closely with partners such as the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), with whom IPO shares a robust collaborative relationship. USCIS also works closely with its sister agency, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), as well as with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the U.S. Department of State, in support of our oversight of the EB-5 program.

Improvements have covered staffing, inter-agency collaborations, and improved processes for important functions such as vetting lawful source of investor funds (as further explained in follow-up testimony — see especially Question 15 in response to Senator Grassley and Question 5 in response to Dianne Feinstein.)

This week’s breaking news story Feds raid San Gabriel, Arcadia locations over visa-fraud scheme involving criminals on China’s most-wanted list reminds us why those improvements were so important. The case, as described in an Application for Search Warrant filed by an FBI investigator, indicates that USCIS approved I-526 petitions from 2009 to 2012 that (if FBI evidence is correct) should never have been approved — including cases that involved people who did not invest their own funds, people who were promptly refunded their investments, and three individuals listed on China’s most wanted list for financial crimes. The good news is that the net since 2013 seems to be holding. The warrant does not indicate that any investors named in the investigation have been able to to get permanent green cards (though several have had I-829 petitions on file since 2012, possibly pending this FBI investigation which seems to have started in 2013), and the post-2013 I-526 petitions discussed in the warrant are likewise pending. The investigation stands as evidence that people may try to get away with fraud and abuse — but not that they get away with it. Investors who may have been complicit have not successfully completed the immigration process, and the regional center principals have had the FBI at their heels (sometimes literally: “at approximately 11:13 a.m., observed TAT exit SUBJECT PREMISES #2’s front door and walk across the street, after which he talked to a gardener, and then returned and entered SP#2. At 11:45 a.m. observed TAT exit SP#2 and go to the mailbox in front of the residence and retrieve mail. At 12:13 p.m. observed TAT walking from SP#2 carrying a black-colored briefcase-sized soft bag in his hands. TAT then walked across the street.”) and are now facing formal fraud investigation. Dozens of good faith investors in CIIF offerings and anyone with CIIF who’s innocent of fraud are unfortunate collateral damage, and I wish for their sake that the FBI had worked more quickly. (Updates: Some investors have filed suit in civil court to try to get their money back, and Federal Prosecutors have filed civil complaints seeking asset forfeiture. Victoria Chan has pled guilty to fraud and money-laundering charges.)