Tuesday, July 12, 2022 – U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has released the new Form I-526E, Immigrant Petition by Regional Center Investor. Beginning today, investors in a qualifying designated Regional Center project may resume filing. Form I-526E is filed by immigrant investors who are seeking to pool their investment with one or more additional investors seeking EB-5 classification under the new Regional Center Program.
Under the new Form I-526E, investors have the ability to incorporate project evidence by reference to a Regional Center’s Form I-956F receipt number. This simplifies the filing requirements for individual petitioners and will allow USCIS to process petitions more efficiently, hopefully reducing processing times.
Forms I-526E that are properly filed will receive two separate receipt notices. The first notice will be from the USCIS Lockbox, acknowledging receipt of your I-526E and the total fee amount received and processed. (The filing fee remains unchanged for now, but we encourage investors to act before it increases in October). Next, USCIS will issue a formal receipt notice that includes the assigned receipt number for the application when data entry has been completed. The priority date for Form I-526E will be the date the USCIS Lockbox receives your petition.