#eb5redeploymentdueprocess
The official due date for comments to the redeployment Policy Manual update was before August 24, 2020. However, according to the USCIS website, the public “can submit feedback on the USCIS Policy Manual at any time” (emphasis added). See instructions on the USCIS website.
If you missed sending your comments, or if you want to encourage your EB-5 stakeholders to send comments, feedback can still be sent to USCISPolicyManual@uscis.dhs.gov.
For inspiration, see the excellent joint comments by IIUSA-AILA here.
For further inspiration, see the conclusion to my comments below:
The use of EB-5 capital, both in the initial and any further deployment, is highly regulated implicating federal and state oversight and numerous commercial contractual obligations. Commercial transactions involving deployment of EB-5 capital simply cannot be unwound immediately and certainly cannot be unwound retroactively. Yet the Redeployment Policy Update requires these impossible feats.
As counsel to EB-5 stakeholders including regional centers, new commercial enterprises, developers, and investors for 15 years, I report that EB-5 stakeholders wish nothing more than to comply to the letter with USCIS guidance. The stakes are too high to do otherwise. Accordingly, USCIS must publish any guidance with clarity and, critically, with notice. The regulated EB-5 community cannot function with guidance imposed immediately or retroactively. USCIS does both in the Policy Update.
I urge USCIS for the sake of EB-5 Program integrity and public faith in program oversight to rescind the Policy Update and proceed thereafter only with notice and prospective application.
Thank you for your efforts in administering the EB-5 Program and the opportunity to submit these comments.
Yours truly,
Carolyn S. Lee
For a video recording of my webinar on redeployment policy update comment-writing, go to https://www.facebook.com/carolynleepllc/.
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CAROLYN LEE PLLC
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