Process and timing
Processing time
Also called EB-5 processing time, adjudication time.
Processing time is how long USCIS takes to adjudicate an EB-5 filing once it is received, a delay separate from the wait for a visa number, and the 2022 Act attached adjudication goals to it that govern how USCIS prices its fees rather than when it must decide.
What it decides
Section 106 of the EB-5 Reform and Integrity Act, set out as a note to 8 U.S.C. 1153, tells USCIS to set EB-5 fees at a level sufficient to recover the cost of attaining goals of completing adjudications, on average, within 180 days for a regional center proposal, 180 days for an application to approve an investment offering, 90 days for that application where the project sits in a targeted employment area, 240 days for an investor petition under section 203(b)(5)(E), 120 days for such a petition where the investment sits in a targeted employment area, and 240 days for removal of conditions. They are averages tied to fee setting, not deadlines a court enforces, and the petition figures are written for regional center cases. Separately 8 U.S.C. 1153(b)(5)(E)(ii)(I) tells USCIS to prioritise rural petitions. For a child ageing out the split is decisive: 8 U.S.C. 1153(h)(1)(B) subtracts only the days the petition was pending, never the years spent waiting in the visa queue.
Where this is explained properly
Pages here that go into processing time rather than mentioning it.
Related terms
- Priority dateA priority date is the date USCIS properly receives a complete, signed and paid Form I-526 or I-526E, and it fixes the investor's place in the visa queue for their country of chargeability and their EB-5 category.
- Visa BulletinThe Visa Bulletin is the monthly Department of State publication that reports, by preference category and country of chargeability, which priority dates have reached the front of the immigrant visa queue.
- Priority processing for rural projectsThe statutory instruction that USCIS prioritise the processing and adjudication of EB-5 petitions for rural areas, which moves a case up the assignment queue and changes nothing about the standard for approval.
- Form I-526EForm I-526E, Immigrant Petition by Regional Center Investor, is the petition an investor files with USCIS to claim EB-5 classification under INA 203(b)(5)(E) for capital pooled in an offering for which a designated regional center has already filed Form I-956F.
- Form I-829Form I-829, Petition by Investor to Remove Conditions on Permanent Resident Status, is the petition an EB-5 conditional permanent resident files in the 90 days before the second anniversary of that status, asking USCIS to confirm the capital was invested and the ten jobs created and to make the green card unconditional.
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