WR Immigration Managing Partner Bernie Wolfsdorf and Partner Joey Barnett are joined by special guest Charlie Oppenheim, Former Chief of Visa Control and Reporting Division at U.S. Department of State, to provide analysis and observations on the EB–5 Reform and Integrity Act of 2022.
With Processing 36-60 Months, Litigation May Be the Only Option to Secure Permanent Green Card USCIS has begun to issue receipt notices to all immigrant investors with pending Form I-829, Petition by Investor to Remove Conditions on Permanent Resident Status, three months after announcing the policy change to extend Conditional Lawful Permanent Residency to 24 months upon a timely filing of a Form I-829. USCIS is issuing new receipts to immigrant investors who have already been waiting for adjudication for over 24 months, which hardly helps when the waiting line is 3-5+ years. USCIS online processing times show that it takes the Immigrant Investor Program Office (IPO) 38 to 63.5 months to adjudicate a Form I-829. An immigrant investor is not even allowed to inquire on the status of one’s case unless the I-829 was filed before September 2016. This makes no sense, in particular nowadays when IPO does not have Regional Center-based Form I-526 petitions to adjudicate. It appears USCIS will not adjudicate a Form I-829 unless being forced to as a result of mandamus litigation alleging unreasonable delay. In the past 30 days, it appears IPO has only adjudicated 100 Form I-829s. For immigrant investors whose Form I-829 has been […]
The Department of Homeland Security has posted a Federal Register notice alerting EB-5 stakeholders that the USCIS will begin collecting funds for the EB-5 Integrity Fund to administer the EB-5 Regional Center Program, as required by the EB-5 Reform and Integrity Act of 2022. In their blog piece analyzing this update, EB5 Investors Magazine staff reached out to WR Managing Partner Bernie Wolfsdorf for comment. In the article, Wolfsdorf states, “[t]he decision by USCIS to collect a $20,000 Integrity Fee from regional centers in addition to all the other fees collected, is highway robbery, especially when coupled with the threat to terminate the designation of any regional center that does not pay the fee within 90 days of the due date.” To read the entire blog piece, visit the EB5 site>>
