Kristen Ng

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As previously blogged (see EB-5 Regulations Published for Public Inspection), the EB-5 regulations have been published as of July 24, 2019, as final, to take effect Nov. 21,…
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After years of delay the Obama-era EB-5 immigration regulations were published on July 24, 2019. You can find a copy of the regulations at this link. You can also…
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On Dec. 4, 2017, the Supreme Court issued an order allowing President Trump’s Proclamation on Travel Ban to go fully into effect. With certain exceptions, this ban places entry restriction on nationals of eight countries – Chad, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Somalia, Syria, Venezuela, and Yemen. As previously reported, in September a U.S. District Judge in Hawaii blocked the Proclamation from taking effect, except for nationals of North Korea and Venezuela. On Nov. 13, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals temporarily put part of the lower court’s ruling on hold, allowing the Proclamation to take effect, but only for those individuals from the impacted countries who do not have bona fide ties to the United States.
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We previously reported on the disturbing Request for Evidence (RFE) trend where investors and their attorneys were not receiving RFEs in the mail even though the case status showed that one was issued.  We are now reporting on another trend, this time in the substance of the RFEs and the results from submitting responses, specifically to the RFEs that request additional evidence from third-party money exchangers.
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Investors and their attorneys alike have taken note of a disturbing trend recently:  when USCIS issues a Request for Evidence (RFE), it is oftentimes not received by either party.  Typically, RFEs are mailed in hard copy, and a copy is mailed to the Investor, and a second copy is mailed to the attorney of record.  In almost all cases with I-526 RFEs, the Investor is given 87 days to respond if he or she resides in the United States, and 98 days to respond if he or she resides outside of the United States.   Recently, upon checking the status of a case using the USCIS online portal, the Investor and/or attorney will find that “A Request for Additional Evidence Has Been Mailed,” on a specific date; however, frequently the RFE is never received by either party, including the attorney of record that should receive a copy of all communications from USCIS.  Common protocol is to follow up with USCIS via email, but some have experienced 1) unresponsiveness from USCIS, sometimes taking a several weeks to respond; and 2) the officer responding is unwilling to attach the RFE to the email correspondence without proof the RFE was not delivered, a standard which is impossible to prove given that USCIS mails the RFEs via U.S. Postal Service with no delivery tracking.
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