Monday, September 19, 2011

EB-5 IIUSA Conference

I attended the IIUSA (Regional Center Trade Association) Conference in Seattle a few weeks ago. There was over 200 in attendance. There was a little interesting news including:

• The AILA EB-5 committee met with Alejandro Mayorkas. Premium processing (expediting case for a government fee) will be implemented in stages; the first being email questions by the USCIS' examiners to attorneys rather than a Request for Evidence (RFE). This started on September 1 (and is pretty useless). Otherwise when premium processing will begin remains unknown.

• The USCIS will not challenge a state's Targeted Employment Area (TEA) designation provided it does not contain a math error in calculating the unemployment rate and is not a gerrymandered district or used a totally unacceptable methodology. This is very good news and what I have been predicting based on the last USCIS stakeholder's call.

• The Economist Jeff Carr said many states have been intimidated by USCIS' reluctance to accept TEA letters and they are now more restrictive.

• The Canadian investor immigration program has so many applicants backed up (20,000) they have imposed a moratorium.

It was a good meeting for sharing ideas.

Martin

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