On October 1st many U.S. Embassy and Consulates overseas, as well as the National Visa Center stopped processing EB-5 based immigrant visa petitions for regional centers due to a mistake in the October visa bulletin.  The visa bulletin for October 2012 erroneously noted that immigrant visa numbers for I-526 petitions approved through the EB-5 Regional Center pilot program were unavailable.  It appears that the Department of State did not know that S. 3245 was signed into law on Friday, September 28th and extended the EB-5 Regional Center program.  As a result of the extension, immigrant visa numbers for regional center based immigrants should not have been listed as unavailable and interviews should still have been scheduled.  However, numerous applicants were told that their applications could not be processed because visas were “unavailable.”   After being notified of the error, Department of State officials confirmed that they would correct the mistake and notify consular posts that I-526 petitions should continue to be processed.

Additionally, the October visa bulletin also incorrectly described the employment-based 5th preference category.   Specifically, it noted that there were two separate categories entitled: (1) 5th Targeted Employment Areas/Regional Centers” and then (2) “5th Pilot Program,” when in fact those are actually a single category.  Targeted Employment Area designations that allow individuals to invest at the lower $500,000 threshold amount are applied in both the individual EB-5 category, as well as the regional center category.

EB-5 investors who experience problems in processing of their applications due to this error are encouraged to contact their legal counsel immediately.

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Photo of Kate Kalmykov Kate Kalmykov

Kate Kalmykov Co-Chairs the Immigration & Compliance Practice. She focuses her practice on business immigration and compliance. She represents clients in a wide-range of employment based immigrant and non-immigrant visa matters including students, trainees, professionals, managers and executives, artists and entertainers, treaty investors

Kate Kalmykov Co-Chairs the Immigration & Compliance Practice. She focuses her practice on business immigration and compliance. She represents clients in a wide-range of employment based immigrant and non-immigrant visa matters including students, trainees, professionals, managers and executives, artists and entertainers, treaty investors and traders, persons of extraordinary ability and immigrant investors.

Kate has deep experience working on EB-5 immigrant investor matters. She regularly works with developers across a variety of industries, as well as private equity funds on developing new projects that qualify for EB-5 investments. This includes creation of new Regional Centers, having projects adopted by existing Regional Centers or through pooled individual EB-5 petitions. For existing Regional Centers, Kate regularly helps to prepare amendment filings, file exemplar petitions, address removal of conditions issues and ensure that they develop an internal program for ongoing compliance with applicable immigration regulations and guidance. She also counsels foreign nationals on obtaining greencards through either individual or Regional Center EB-5 investments, as well as issues related to I-829 Removal of Conditions.

Kate also works with various human resources departments on I-9 employment verification matters as well as H-1B and LCA compliance. She regularly counsels employers on due diligence issues including internal audits and reviews, as well as minimization of exposure and liabilities in government investigations.