Risk and compliance

Threats to the national interest

Also called national interest grounds, INA 203(b)(5)(N).

Threats to the national interest is subparagraph (N) of the EB-5 statute, which obliges the Secretary of Homeland Security to deny or revoke any EB-5 petition, application or benefit, and to end the resident status it produced, once the Secretary decides in discretion that approval would be contrary to the national interest for reasons relating to public safety or national security.

What it decides

8 U.S.C. 1153(b)(5)(N)(i) makes the denial or revocation mandatory once that discretionary determination is made. Clause (ii) lists what it reaches: a regional center certification, designation or amendment to a designation; an investor petition; a petition to remove conditions under 8 U.S.C. 1186b; an application to approve a business plan under subparagraph (F); and a document already evidencing conditional permanent resident status. Clause (iii) permanently bars any associated person, an alien investor included, who knowingly participated in the conduct behind a termination on these grounds. Clause (iv) requires notice of the determination and allows the Secretary to terminate the permanent resident status of the investor and of the investor's spouse and children as of the date of the determination, while the duty to give an explanation runs only to a United States-owned entity and falls away where the information is classified. Clause (v) strips every court of jurisdiction to review the denial or revocation, saving only constitutional claims and questions of law on a petition for review under 8 U.S.C. 1252.

Governed by 8 U.S.C. 1153(b)(5)(N), whose heading is Threats to the national interest, clauses (i) through (v). The statute is good for every clause above. What it does not supply is any content for 'public safety' or 'national security', and for that the source is USCIS Policy Manual, Volume 6, Part G, Chapter 8, Section B.1 (6 USCIS-PM G.8(B)(1)), issued 16 July 2024, which reads public safety as including aggravated felonies under INA 101(a)(43) and national security as including the grounds at INA 212(a)(3)(A), (B) and (F) and INA 237(a)(4)(A) and (B). Subparagraph (O), Fraud, misrepresentation, and criminal misuse, is the parallel provision and is not this one.

Related terms

Debarment and suspensionDebarment and suspension are the EB-5 sanctions the USCIS Director imposes on a non-compliant regional center or the individuals behind it: a suspension is temporary and lifts if the violation is cured, while a debarment is a permanent bar, and both sit on one graduated ladder that also carries fines and termination of the regional center's designation.
Denial and revocationDenial and revocation are the two ways USCIS refuses an EB-5 petition: a denial rejects a petition that has not established eligibility, and a revocation withdraws an approval already granted, which is why an approved EB-5 petition is never finally settled.
Removal of conditionsRemoval of conditions is the last EB-5 filing, Form I-829, submitted in the 90 days before the second anniversary of conditional residence, in which the investor shows the required capital was invested and kept invested for the period the law requires and that ten full-time jobs were created or can be expected within a reasonable time.
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.

Checked against primary sources on 10 August 2026. Back to the glossary