As we previously reported, USCIS has recently changed its policy of allowing loans to be a source of an investor’s lawful capital. Many stakeholders have reported that I-526 Petitions are being denied when the investor does not wholly own the real property used to collateralize the loan. USCIS has stated that proceeds from a loan may qualify as capital of the investor provided that: (1) the investor is personally and primarily liable for the loan and (2) the value of the collateralized asset actually owned by the investor meets or exceeds the value of the loan.

Despite many legal arguments to the contrary, the AAO claims Matter of Soffici holds that all cash proceeds derived from a loan must be evaluated as indebtedness. This is an extraordinary leap from the facts of the precedent decision, since the cash proceeds of the loan claimed by the petitioner were actually the proceeds of a loan obtained by the NCE, not by the investor. Stakeholders have voiced a number of concerns about this flawed legal reasoning and recently it has been reported that there is now pending litigation to decide this issue in the federal courts.

Taking a new legal route, we have been successful in making legal and factual arguments about property law in China. There are various factual scenarios and property law concepts in China applicable to these indebtedness cases, including the value of the property, the type of property ownership under Chinese law, divisible property law concepts, mortgage laws in China, and debt/credit/contribution principles.   Thus, even if USCIS continues to adjudicate cases under its new policy guidance, mortgage cases still can be approved if they are structured correctly and USCIS is issuing approvals once again.   This is very welcome news for many EB-5 applicants that had filed their applications and were concerned about the viability of their petitions given this retroactive change in policy.

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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.