Earlier this week, IIUSA, on behalf of the EB-5 Regional Center industry, submitted a letter to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) regarding the recent surge in EB-5 adjudication delays.
As the industry trade association representing nearly 370 EB-5 stakeholder organizations, IIUSA, along with our members, greatly appreciate the efforts that IPO has put in enhancing the productivity of Form I526 adjudication completions. While USCIS’s data in FY2018 and early FY2019 demonstrated IPO’s achievements on the reductions of I-526 processing times, the most recent data illustrates a sudden and significant surge on Form I-526 adjudication delays in May 2019, about which the EB-5 community is
deeply concerned.
The delays in Form I-526 adjudications leads to disruptions in the businesses of the EB-5 community that facilitate capital investment from qualified I-526 petitioners (“Investors”) which support local economic growth in American communities. The ever-lengthening delays in adjudicating investor petitions will further delay the deployment of the EB-5 funding to the project developers, many of which depend on the investment from the investors to complete the economic development projects in their local communities, creating jobs for American workers
The letter seeks further insight from USCIS, specifically asking the below questions:
- What are the specific causes of the surge in Form I-526 processing times, particularly in May 2019?
- What efforts have been or will be taken to enhance IPO’s productivity on completing I-526
adjudications and reduce the backlog of Form I-526 in the rest of FY2019 and beyond? - According to Ms. Kendall, IPO had close to 200 dedicated personnel in October 2018. Has this number changed since then? How many personnel are allocated to the I-526 team?
- How many I-526 petitions did IPO receive so far in FY2019 and for how many I-526 petitions has IPO completed adjudications so far in FY2019? How do these numbers compare to the same time period last federal fiscal year?
- When will IPO host the next EB-5 stakeholder engagement meeting?
