Latest AAO Decisions (EB5) Analyzed
Posted By
Kristina on Jan 17, 2011 7:36am PST
In its September 2010 25-pages long decision, AAO once again confirm how crucial it is for a regional center's original business plan and projections to be sustainable and viable in context of EB5 regulations. The long -established legal filing criteria - the petition must be approvable when filed - has been once again reiterated. In this particular case, a regional center filed an amendment to its business plan with almost every I-526 petition - which stopped with the instant case as AAO determined that no post-filing amendments to business plan would be considered. This seems to be a theme of the latest AAO decisions and should certainly place regional centers on notice.
Another interesting piece of this particular decision was the portion dedicated to the lawful source of funds. In this case, an Iranian investor failed to demonstrate a clear path of his $500,000 by, in essence, only submitting bank account statements demonstrating the funds on the account, a deed to property which was hard to place in the chain of the events and some transfers to the foreign banks materials. The OFAC license discussion was also note-worthy as in this particular case it only allowed "export services", not money transfers. Again, if and when proceeding with EB5 case, all circumstances and facts has to be aligned as perfectly as can be expected.