11月2011与移民局局长的对话与解读
(Jia Hu edited 胡佳稿)
Recently, the president Patty Chen had joined three conversations meeting about the EB-5 Immigrant Investor Program with the Director of USCIS, Alejandro Mayorkas, who has done an excellent job of highlighting the importance of the EB-5 visa program in a fast pace, and senior members of the USCIS leadership team. These conversations demonstrated USCIS had made important progress to EB-5 Immigrant Investor Program. It lets USCIS hear more voices from investors and make improvements, also lets our company, as a investor representative, have a chance to state the concerns to USCIS directly.
The first conversation was in the middle of September, 2011, focusing on economic development in the context of the EB-5 (Immigrant Investor) program. They also think this kind of small group discussion complemented the existing quarterly EB-5 engagement program. The following day, Patty had another conversation with them, also a more in-depth discussion, about discrete policy issues related to the EB-5 program. At the last conversation, President Patty asked Alejandro why USCIS decided to accelerate the approving projects to 15 days in Regional centers, and what the influence will be to the existing processing time to EB-5 visa applicants, in particular the time of I-526 petitions. All these questions will have direct impact to the EB-5 investors, either from business decision aspect or from investing aspect.
USCIS Director Alejandro Mayorkas mentioned USCIS has engaged with internal and external stakeholders to learn of their concerns regarding current adjudication policies and practices. USCIS also seeks stakeholder input on these foundational issues before providing greater detail and addressing additional issues. This draft memorandum is a work in progress, and it is shared now to obtain valuable real-time input and to define a collaborative approach with the stakeholder community. The draft memorandum is not operative and will not guide adjudication decisions until it is published in complete and final form. Current policy memoranda continue to guide our adjudications.In response to the stakeholders input, USCIS had announced the adjudication process reforms, including:
- The introduction of direct e-mail contact between the Regional Center petitioners and the USCIS adjudication team. This reform already has been instituted;
- The introduction of accelerated process and premium processing for certain applicants and petitions;
- The use of an expert Decision Board to assist adjudicators in rendering final adjudications on Regional Center petitions;
- Hired economists with business analysis expertise to help guide and support the USCIS adjudication team;
- Hired a consulting firm to help further reengineer the EB-5 adjudication process to deliver greater efficiencies.
第一次谈话发生在2011年9月中，主要集中讨论EB – 5投资移民计划所处的大经济环境。同时双方都认为这种能与投资人进行直接对话补充了现在3个月才一次的参与计划。第二天，与移民局局长又进行了一次更深入的对话，主要就EB – 5计划相关的具体政策问题进行了讨论。最后一次谈话是 在11月9日，帕蒂向移民局局长提出她的疑问，移民局怎么样尽快实行15天加快审批区域中心的项目，以及对现在EB – 5 （條件綠卡）签证申请处理时间的影响，尤其是I – 526处理时间的影响。因为这些都将直接影响到投资申请人的决定,不管是从商业决策的角度还是投资的角度来说。
对话中，移民局局长提到移民局正加强内部和外部的利益相关者的参与，让其了解他们关于当前的审判政策和相关做法。移民局还征询利益相关者在这些基本问题上的看法和要求，以便提供更细节的解决问题的方法。这个备忘录草案目前还在修改中，是共享的。USCIS可以获得宝贵的实时要求，还可以实时与利益相关者合作。要注意的是备忘录草案并不会影响移民局目前的决定，直道它以完整的和最终的形式发表后。对于回应利益相关者的要求，移民局已宣布在备忘录的新的改革措施：
•建立区域中心的申请者和移民局裁决团队之间的直接电子邮件联系方式。这项改革已经被立法;
•对加快申请进程和优先申请进行了详细介绍;
•使用专家决策委员会，以协助区域中心申请的最终判定;
•聘请有商业分析经验的专业经济学家，帮助引导和支持美国移民局裁定团队;
•聘请了一家咨询公司，以帮助进一步重新设计EB – 5评审过程来提高效率。
移民局还将进行其他的改革。同时移民局审查了各种目前EB – 5政策，并决定将所有的备忘录合并成一个总体政策备忘录，而且备忘录将吸取利益相关者的建设性意见并反映之前颁布的各种备忘录的经验教训。由于问题的大数量和复杂性，移民局将使用不断更新的方式来做这个单一的EB – 5政策备忘录，靠不断征求意见来保证政策备忘录草案的前进。