questions to include in today’s presentation. We plan on posting additional Q&As that we could not address today on our website at uscis.gov/eb-5.
VISA AVAILABILITY
- As announced at IPO’s last stakeholder engagement on March 13, 2020, USCIS implemented a process change for Form I-526, Immigrant Petition by Alien Investor, moving to a visa availability approach that became effective March 31, 2020. Also at the last engagement, IPO reviewed some questions and answers regarding this new process that were later posted on uscis.gov/eb-5, under the “EB-5 Resources” heading.
- One of the new Q&As explains how IPO generally organizes its I-526 inventory based on this prioritization. We manage our pending I-526 inventory through workflows that factor in: (1) whether a visa is available (or soon will be available); and (2) whether the underlying project has been reviewed.
- In addition, IPO generally manages workflows in first-in, first-out order when a visa is available or will be available soon. We have put in place accountability measures to make sure these procedures are followed in the new inventory management process. We are committed to managing the existing inventory in as equitable and efficient a manner as possible.
- Another new Q&A on the USCIS website addresses the methodology that the agency uses to calculate its processing times. The methodology currently used to calculate processing times is described in detail on the website at egov.uscis.gov/processing-times/more-info and represents a range of processing times based on an analysis of recently completed cases. More information on this can be found in the Q&A response for later reference. We applied this methodology to Form I-526 processing times in May 2019. Because the current processing times reflect the age of recently adjudicated I-526 petitions, the range can fluctuate depending on the filing dates of petitions we recently completed.
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