How will new US immigration reform policies affect EB-5 applications?

New US immigration policies should not impact your case. You should check your case status routinely on the USCIS website for up to date information on your petition.

It takes longer now. They will get back to you.

Senator Leahy from the State of Vermont has submitted several bills to fix the processing times of the EB-5. It is part of the reform policies.

The time period your case has been pending appears to be beyond the normal processing times. If you have immigration counsel, you should request that they look into this. The proposed legislation as it stands now is unlikely to impact a pending I-526. Internal USCIS policy shifts often have a greater impact on the adjudication of these types of petitions.

New policy should not affect your existing application.

Current processing times for I-526 petitions is almost 12 months. You should contact your immigration attorney to check status and/or discuss your case. If you have a receipt notice with your specific case number, you should be able to check the status online at uscis.govofficial website. Immigration reform proposal discusses making the EB-5 pilot program permanent and it is unlikely it will affect pending cases. At this point, it is only a proposed reform.

The time frame you express is outside normal processing time. I suggest you have legal counsel look into this. Regarding the reform act that is pending, I do not anticipate processing times will be affected.

The new EB-5 office which will operate in Washington DC should be effective in expediting the processing of the I-526 petitions.

It is not clear how the proposed legislation will affect EB-5 petition processing times, or if any new law would affect EB-5 at all. The two provisions in the proposal that address EB-5 would (1) make the regional center pilot program permanent and (2) would change how immigrant visa numbers are allocated such that more EB-5 cases could be processed without the prospect of a visa number shortage/backlog. There is nothing in the legislation that addresses the current long processing time for I-526 petitions. This issue may be addressed internally by USCIS, which needs to allocate resources to reduce the processing time. This is a goal stated by the USCIS in public pronouncements regarding this issue.

Currently the proposed bill does not seem to have a direct impact on the EB5 category. Remember this is just a proposal at this time. By the time the immigration reform is passed, there will be several changes so we cannot predict with certainty what the actual immigration reform act will look like, if it is even passed. If your case is already pending, it is unlikely that the reform will impact your case.

The processing times right now at USCIS are about a year, you should be notified soon about approval, denial or request for additional evidence in your case.

We hope so. There has been a push to expedite the processing as there is millions of dollars in capital waiting to be released for projects.

I am not sure if you were represented by an immigration attorney in your filing of the I-526 petition one year ago. You should have received a receipt notice that has a case receipt number that you can check status of at https://egov.uscis.gov/cris/Dashboard.do;jsessionid=bacjT-oRR8fzm9M5HRP6t. There should have been a request for further evidence letter sent to you or your attorney, given that one year has already gone by. You should immediately contact your immigration attorney to check your online case status or by email to adjudicating officers . I do not believe that the new US immigration reform policies will affect your EB-5 application approval time.

Yes, but not for that reason. Due to moving the EB-5 Program back to Washington DC, processing times should grow longer.

As far as we know it is totally unrelated.

The proposed language of the Immigration Reform bill makes the EB-5 permanent instead of just 3 years. Thus, there is nothing in the bill that will negatively impact EB-5 process. Having said that, USCIS recently published processing time for I-526 is nearly 12 months. This means that the average I-526 petition will take 12 months and some will get approved faster and some will be slower than the average. USCIS explains this delay as quadrupling of the number of cases filed within past year. Also, USCIS has moved the EB-5 unit from California Service Center to Washington, DC recently. This move might have delayed further any adjudication. While I share your frustration at these delays, I urge patience. Good luck.

Unlikely. If you have a lawyer, he or she should have explained there is a backlog and they are working on cases filed in march of 2012.