The Department of States has posted the June Visa Bulletin. The Employment Base Fifth visa categories are as below:
CHART A: FINAL ACTION DATES
Chart A gives the final action date for EB-5 investors who have their I-526 petitions already approved. For investors from countries with “C” as their final action date, they may be issued their visas. For investors from countries with a date (“DDMYY” format) instead of “C”, this is the priority date that tells you where you are in the queue. EB-5 investors can proceed with their application process if the final action date is after the priority date.
CHART B: EB-5 DATES FOR FILING
Chart B specifies the filing date for countries with large visa backlogs. Investors from those countries should avoid filing their applications until a certain date shown on this chart. This helps USCIS to not receive huge number of applications at one time. Additionally, it also indicates when the EAD card and travel document can be issued (for Concurrent Filing).
COMBINING DIRECT EB-5 AND REGIONAL CENTER EB-5
Starting in June, the visa bulletin for EB-5 will no longer be divided into the Direct EB-5 Program and the Regional Center EB-5 as it has been for years. The status for EB-5 will be divided into Unreserved and Reserved. Reserved visas will be further broken down into high unemployment (10%), rural (20%) and infrastructure (2%).
MAY 2022 VISA BULLETIN
JUNE 2022 VISA BULLETIN
This is a significant change, especially for Chinese investors. The May 2022 Visa Bulletin shows no backlog for the Direct EB-5 Chinese investors, while Regional Center EB-5 Chinese investors face a huge backlog with the priority date being 2015. By combining both Direct and Regional Center programs together, the direct EB-5 Chinese investors now also have to face the same backlog as the Regional Center EB-5 Chinese investors. Moving forward, unless Chinese investors invest in a project that qualifies for one of the three reserved EB-5 visa categories, they might have to wait for a relatively long time.
The priority date for investors from all other countries shows “CURRENT” (direct & indirect, reserved high unemployment, reserved rural, and reserved infrastructure). This means that there is no backlog and the applications are processed as they come in. This is the golden window for investors from countries that are prone to backlog like Vietnam and India to invest and file their I-526 petitions.
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