IIUSA has been closely monitoring the USCIS EB-5 petition processing times and, as pledged by new EB-5 Program Chief Nicolas Colucci on the 2/26 EB-5 Stakeholder teleconference, an effort is underway to update processing times on a monthly basis at the USCIS.govprocessing times webpage. Moreover, IIUSA reported last weekaccording to the USCIS.gov webpage, “Processing times for Form I-924 will be available on or about March 21, 2014, at this link.”
IIUSA has also observed when “checking the status of your case online” from USCIS.gov, users can no longer view processing times from the California Service Center and are instead directed to view processing times form the Immigrant Investor Program Office (See the two charts below).
I-526 Processing Times for California Service Center, effective as of December 31, 2013. This chart is no longer listed by USCIS.
I-526 processing times, effective as of January 31, 2014, at the Immigrant Investor Program Office.
It is IIUSA’s conclusion that this change may be a reflection of USCIS updating the back end of their website and may only represent a part of the data. As stated on the 2/26 EB-5 stakeholder call, over 7,000 I-526 petitions are still pending. Moreover, USCIS dashboard for “National Processing Volumes and Trends” shows 6,207 I-526 petitions pending as of January 14, 2014. We also heard on the 2/26 stakeholder call that the processing times for I-526 petitions would get worse before they got better while USCIS hires new adjudicators at the EB-5 Program Office in Washington, DC.
IIUSA will be checking on this with USCIS and encourage patience until all of the data is fully integrated into USCIS.gov. Stay tuned.
