EB-5 Regional Center 2022 Lawsuit Update 3-8-22

EB-5 Regional Center 2022 Lawsuit Update 3-8-22

Please read below for important updates about recent news from Congress and possible change in strategy on our case.

What’s going on in Congress?

As many of you know, yesterday it became clear that there’s a strong likelihood that Congress will make changes to the EB-5 program within the next few days as part of the “omnibus” spending bill.

The current draft of the bill would eliminate the EB-5 Regional Center program as it currently exists entirely. The bill would allow “grandfathering” of all current applicants. This means folks who already have Regional Center-related applications pending would still have their cases adjudicated under the program as it currently exists. The most recent draft of the legislation that we have just seen has 60-day waiting period before the new EB-5 law would go into effect. However, it is not clear at this moment whether that means that USCIS and DoS would wait an additional 60 days to process your applications.

This is NOT a sure thing, and negotiations change by the hour. If the bill does pass as-is, it would be good news for our plaintiffs because USCIS and DoS would continue adjudicating your cases.

We don’t know yet whether the bill will pass, whether that 60-day provision will make it into the final version of the bill, and how USCIS and DoS will interpret the language if the bill does include it.

What does this mean for our lawsuit?

As we have said from the beginning, we do not file lawsuits that we don’t believe we can win, and we always adjust our strategy as law and policy develop.

Our complaint (initial filing) has been drafted and we were hoping to file it yesterday. However, we decided it would be prudent to wait for more information about what Congress will do before we file the case.

Depending on what we learn in the next few days, there are a couple of possibilities which we’ll discuss further once we have more information.

If we decide that there is not a viable lawsuit because you will all be getting your cases adjudicated promptly, we will refund your fees in full immediately (see below — your payments are currently in a separate trust account).

If we learn that the government plans to wait an additional 60 days before processing cases, we will regroup to talk about the possibility of a group mandamus lawsuit for those of you who don’t already have individual mandamus cases pending.

The final bill may have other changes we haven’t seen yet, so we will adjust our litigation strategy accordingly.

How will I know what’s going to happen with the lawsuit?

We’ll continue to be in touch with each other and with you, and we will email you when we make a final decision on how to proceed. We’ll then have an opportunity to answer your questions on Telegram and via a live video chat on our YouTube channel.

What does this mean for the fees we already paid?

Your legal fees are currently sitting in a trust account. This is separate account that belongs to plaintiffs, not to the law firms. If we don’t move forward with the lawsuit, or if your individual case is approved before we file, we’ll refund your legal fees in full.

The IMMpact team will be live shortly on our Youtube channel (noon Eastern, 11 am Central) to discuss this case and updates to our ongoing cases.

Thank you again for your confidence. We understand that this is a confusing and frustrating time, and we will do our best to fight for you in whatever way we can.