Getting the I-829 petition approved is the final hurdle that EB-5 investors need to clear to complete the EB-5 process and become legal residents of the United States, on their way to full citizenship. In order to get his or her I-829 petition approved, the applicant must prove that the requirements of the EB-5 Program have all been met within the allotted timeframe.
Typically, regional centers will put together the documents required to prove program compliance. They must first provide documentation that investment funds remained invested in a qualifying new commercial enterprise for the entire duration of the investment period. This is usually done through the use of either proprietary or third-party programs that are able to follow the investment funds throughout the investment period.
Regional centers must also provide evidence that the required 10 jobs were created for each EB-5 investor. This is the most difficult evidence to provide, however, as there is no easy tool that can calculate job creation, taking into consideration all the direct, indirect, and induced jobs that result from the investment.
To calculate job creation, regional centers can use the initial economic report as a framework to record both direct and indirect costs of construction as well as any returns once the project is completed and under operation. If the actual amounts differ substantially from those in the initial economic report, a new one may need to be created.This will not negatively affect petition approval; USCIS does not require the ending economic report to be identical to the original as long as adequate proof of job creation is submitted with each I-829 Petition.
Unfortunately, predicting a construction timeline is not an exact science, and occasionally, the actual timeline ends up being longer or shorter than the predicted one. If the physical construction ends before the two years are up, those construction jobs cannot be used to meet the 10-job requirement and more work will need to be done to identify additional jobs that have been created. If construction takes longer than the planned two years, this can make it easier to meet the job requirement, as there will be a higher number of construction-related jobs. In either case, whenever the actual construction timeline differs from the predicted one, care should be taken to develop a new, accurate economic analysis.
EB-5 investors may enter projects at different times, thus staggering the submission of I-829 Petitions. Because the petitions for all investors are not submitted simultaneously, job creation documentation should be prepared before the first applicant is able to submit his or her final I-829 application. Our organization can assist developers and regional centers in putting together economic analyses and job creation documentation to accompany I-829 Petitions. Contact us to get started now.
