The programme
Program lapse
Also called 2021 lapse, suspension, shutdown.
The period from 1 July 2021 to 14 May 2022 when no statute authorized the EB-5 regional center program, so no investor could file a regional center petition. USCIS rejected regional center petitions received on or after 1 July 2021 and suspended adjudication of those already pending. Standalone petitions were unaffected.
What it decides
Authorization for the regional center program sat in section 610(b) of the Departments of Commerce, Justice, and State, the Judiciary, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 1993. Its last extension, section 104 of Title I of Division O of Public Law 116-260 (134 Stat. 1182, 2148, 27 December 2020), substituted 30 June 2021 for the prior sunset date, and Congress let that date pass. The USCIS Policy Manual records that starting 1 July 2021 it suspended adjudication of pending regional center affiliated investor petitions and most regional center applications, and USCIS also rejected regional center Form I-526 petitions received on or after that date. The lapse therefore cost a would-be filer the priority date itself, not just time. The standalone route was untouched, because the sunset sat in the 1992 pilot program provision and INA 203(b)(5) carries no expiration. The EB-5 Reform and Integrity Act of 2022 was signed on 15 March 2022, but it did not close the gap that day. Section 103(a) repealed section 610 on enactment, while section 103(b), which wrote the regional center program into INA 203(b)(5)(E) through 30 September 2027, took effect 60 days later on 14 May 2022 under section 103(b)(2). USCIS announced in April 2022 that it had resumed processing the pending petitions filed on or before 30 June 2021, but no new regional center petition could be filed until 14 May 2022. In the two months when the old authority was repealed and the new one was not yet in force, USCIS treated every previously designated regional center as deauthorized. On 24 June 2022, in Behring Regional Center LLC v. Mayorkas, No. 22-cv-02487-VC (N.D. Cal.), Judge Vince Chhabria preliminarily enjoined USCIS "from treating as deauthorized the previously designated regional centers." The case later settled. Note when checking the source: the Policy Manual table labels the last extension "Division O, Section 204 of Pub. L. 116-260." Division O has no section 204. Its own footnote points to 134 Stat. 2148, the page carrying section 104.
Where this is explained properly
Pages here that go into program lapse rather than mentioning it.
Related terms
- GrandfatheringThe rule at 8 U.S.C. 1153(b)(5)(S) that requires DHS to keep processing a regional center investor's petition, and to keep visas flowing to approved ones, even if the legislation authorizing the regional center program expires, provided the petition was filed on or before 30 September 2026.
- Sunset and reauthorizationThe regional center program's visa authorization runs through 30 September 2027 under 8 U.S.C. 1153(b)(5)(E), and only an act of Congress can extend it.
- Regional centerA regional center is an economic unit, public or private, that USCIS has designated to sponsor pooled EB-5 investment within a defined, contiguous and limited geographic area, and it is the only route on which a petition may count indirect and induced jobs.
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