Comprehensive EB-5 Immigrant Investor Program Adjudications Guidance

Policy effect

Established comprehensive binding adjudication instructions and standards across USCIS for Form I-526, Form I-829, and Form I-924. It operatively formalized the deference policy requiring adjudicators to defer to prior favorable determinations on regional center business plans and economic methodologies absent material changes, fraud, or legal deficiencies, and clarified standards for bridge financing and job creation timelines. Phase scope: Nationwide for all pending and new EB-5 regional center applications, investor immigrant petitions, and condition removal filings.

Official source excerpt

Quoted verbatim from the official source below. Ellipses indicate omitted text.

Since prior determinations will be presumed to have been properly decided, a prior favorable determination will not be considered legally deficient for purposes of according deference unless the prior determination involved an objective mistake of fact or an objective mistake of law evidencing ineligibility for the benefit sought, but excluding those subjective evaluations related to evaluating eligibility. Unless there is reason to believe that a prior adjudication involved an objective mistake of fact or law, USeiS should not reexamine determinations made earlier in the EB-5 process. Absent a material change in facts, fraud, or willful misrepresentation, users should not re-adjudicate prior users determinations that are subjective, such as whether the business plan is comprehensive and credible or whether an economic methodology estimating job creation is reasonable.

Review method

Two separate automated exact-claim source reviews

Other United States changes operative in 2013

• 2013-03-04Provisional Unlawful Presence Waivers of Inadmissibility for Certain Immediate Relatives
• 2013-05-03South Sudan TPS redesignation expands eligibility
• 2013-06-26Extension of Immigration and Naturalization Benefits to Same-Sex Spouses
• 2013-10-01United States expands Syria TPS eligibility through redesignation