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IIUSA Reported Third Quarter Form I-526 adjudication trends
In this blog, we would like to summarize data on third-quarter 2019 (April-June) I-526 adjudication trends as published by the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) and reported by Invest in the USA (IIUSA).
I-526 Filings
Only 3,003 EB-5 investors filed their I-526 petitions to USCIS in the first three quarters of the federal fiscal year (FY) 2019, the lowest volume in terms of I-526 filings in the last eight years.
I-526 Adjudications
Immigrant Investor Program Office (IPO) adjudicated only 4,127 I-526 petitions in the first three-quarters of FY2019, a significant drop of 62% year-over-year.
Approval Rates
The average approval rate of an I-526 petition showed a significant decline in Q3, FY2019. Only 58% of the I-526 cases that were adjudicated in Q3 were approved by the IPO, the lowest approval rate in the last 14 years.
Pending Petitions
As of the end of Q3 FY2019 (June 30th, 2019), the number of I-526 petitions pending at IPO was 13,070, essentially unchanged from the end of the last quarter.
As of this writing, USCIS, on its website, is reporting that I-526 petitions are currently taking 28.5 to 49.5 months to process.
For applicants who need to adjust status in the United States by filing I-485 petitions, the following is a sample of processing times they should consider:
Field Office or Service Center
Processing time in months
California
11.5 to 45
Nebraska
10 to 16
Texas
12.5 to 40
Vermont
11 to 21.5
New York City
21.5 to 39
Los Angeles
8 to 21.5
Chicago
11.5 to 28
Atlanta
11.5 to 25.5
Boston
9 to 29
Houston
14 to 25.5
For applicants who choose to get their conditional green cards through the consular interview, the appointment times differ from one location to the other. Following the I-562 approval, once the National Visa Center approves the case, applicants need to fill out and file Form DS-260. Although through this method the processing times differ from one consulate/embassy to the other, you will find that in most cases, this process will be faster than the adjustment of the status process through the filing of I-485. Through the consular interview method, the conditional green card is issued in 6 to 12 months.
Once the conditional green card is issued, all applicants are required to fulfill the two years conditional green card period, known as the Sustainment Period. 90 days before, at the end of the sustainment period, applicants could file Form I-829 to remove the conditions in their green card to obtain their 10-year permanent green cards and be eligible to get their capital investment returned from the Regional Center based project they invested in.
As of this writing, USCIS, on its website, is reporting that I-829 petitions are currently taking 27.5 to 47.5 months to process.
Therefore, today for applicants who do not have any retrogression worries our best-case and worst-case estimate for the whole EB5 process is as follows:
Whole process in months
Adjustment of Status Method
Adjustment of Status Method
Consular Processing Method
Consular Processing Method
Best Case
Worst Case
Best Case
Worst Case
I-485 Approval
I-485 Approval
DS-260
DS-260
I-526 Approval
28.5
49.5
28.5
49.5
Conditional Green Card
8
45
6
12
Sustainment Period
24
24
24
24
I-829 Approval
27.5
47.5
27.5
47.5
Total in months
88
166
86
133
Total in years
7
14
7
11
In our previous blog, we reported that the minimum investment amounts will be revised upwards effective November 21, 2019. There isn’t much time left to process, and file your I-526 petitions at the low amount of $ 500,000 for projects located in Targeted employment areas (TEA) still in effect. Potential investors who are serious about taking advantage of the EB-5 program should act now on favorable terms before it is too late.