Filing an EB-5 Green Card with a Partial or an Installment Investment amount.
By Immigration Attorney Darren Silver
The EB-5 program is an investment-based program which requires an investor to invest a minimum of $800,000 into a qualifying Regional Center project or a Business Enterprise. The investor is required to file a form known as an I-526e and with that form will also need to provide specific evidence and information to support the investor’s investment path and source of the investment funds.
Historically, the EB-5 petition would typically be filed with a showing that the full investment amount has been infused or is in the process of being invested at time of filing the I-526. However, USCIS over time has accepted the notion that an investor can infuse part of the investment at time of filing, as long as the remaining balance is (1) clearly identified and (2) will be properly transferred to the EB-5 entity prior to a USCIS adjudication.
USCIS has now provided clear support of their long-standing policy for partial investments in providing a partial investment option in their new incarnation of the EB-5 petition form, the I-526e.
An EB-5 with a partial investment can be a very safe strategy for the investor, and may indeed be a good strategy for an investor who is looking to file concurrently with an adjustment of status application based on a current visa bulletin.
The partial EB-5 investor should be aware of certain risks.
-USCIS requires that the full investment must be infused into the EB-5 entity Prior to Adjudication. While adjudication times are provided to the public, these adjudication time frames are estimates. Each specific application may be adjudicated either faster or slower than the estimations provided. Therefore, the applicant should infuse the full investment as early as possible in order to avoid a deficient investment adjudication.
-The current USCIS policy requires a complete showing of the full source of the investor’s funds at time of filing. Therefore, even though the investor may only transfer a partial investment at time of filing, the remaining balance must still be properly presented and identified clearly at the time of filing.
-Where the investor files an application with a clear showing of the source of the remaining balance of the partial investment and then the investor pivots and changes his or her source of the remaining balance to another source, that newly provided source of funds must be very clearly articulated in a separate and new brief to USCIS in order to be accepted.
-Although the investor can submit the supplemental source of funds information to USCIS at any time after the initial EB-5 application has been submitted, there is no guarantee that USCIS will accept this supplement. The investor should be aware that there is a chance that USCIS will issue a comprehensive Request For Evidence (RFE) in order to request information regarding this supplemental source and path of the updated funds.
For more information about applying for an EB-5 with a partial investment, please reach out to our Office. Our Law Firm specializes in investment based immigration and have filed well over 4,000 individual EB-5 applications over the years. We will be happy to discuss your specific case and answer your questions. We can be reached at: info@darrensilver.com
The above content provided is for informational purposes only. It is not legal advice. It also may be incomplete or outdated. You therefore should not rely or act on it. If you need immigration assistance, you should consult with a qualified attorney for specific legal advice tailored to your situation.
