On November 21, 2024, IIUSA and AILA sent an urgent letter to USCIS seeking clarity as to whether winding down regional centers should file a form 956-G. The agency provided a response to the urgent request one month later on December 27, 2024. Links to both letters are provided below:
From the USCIS Response Letter:
Thank you for your November 22, 2023 letter regarding the filing of Form I-956G by December 29, 2023 and whether regional centers’ noncompliance will result in consequences such as termination.
Your letter cited to regional center ‘administrative noncompliance’ resulting in termination; to clarify, the phrase “purely administrative noncompliance” is not intended to be a new termination category or term defined by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), but rather a plain language description of the potential circumstances of noncompliance on the part of regional centers that are not typically related to petitioner eligibility (illustrated in the context of failure to pay the EB-5 Integrity Fund fee required by the EB-5 Reform and Integrity Act of 2022 (RIA)). The potential impact of noncompliance by regional centers on associated investors will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. USCIS will not indicate on the USCIS website the reasons for the regional center termination as has been past practice. Termination notices, however, will include the reasons for the regional center termination including, for example, failure to pay the required EB-5 Integrity Fund fee within the specified time period.
For regional centers that fail to file Form I-956G by the required filing date, INA 203(b)(5)(G) requires that each designated regional center shall submit an annual statement, in a manner prescribed by the Secretary of Homeland Security. The Secretary has designated the Form I-956G as the manner to collect this information. Section INA 203(b)(5)(G)(iii) states that USCIS shall sanction designated regional centers who do not file the annual statement. In accordance with this statutory directive, USCIS will sanction regional centers who fail to comply with the requirement to file their Form I-956G, up to and including termination from the Regional Center Program. Form I-956G and its filing requirements were published in the Federal Register on Sept. 2, 2022, 87 FR 54233. Following public notice and comment, Form I-956G was approved by OMB on July 24, 2023, and subsequently published for use by USCIS.
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