Washington, D.C., April 2, 2024: Donoso & Partners, a law firm renowned for its work in the EB-5 program, has been receiving a steady flow of I-526E approvals for new EB-5 visa petitions filed in 2022 and 2023 (after passage of the EB5 Reform and Integrity Act of 2022 (“RIA”).

We take this opportunity to alert our readers of the new Dual Approval Code by USCIS for I-526E approvals under the RIA.

As our regular readers know, the USCIS grants approval of I-526E visa petitions. For EB-5 investors who will seek delivery of their permanent resident status outside of the U.S., the National Visa Center (“NVC”) of the U.S. Department of State manages visa processing at U.S. Consulates throughout the world.

The recent USCIS approval notices for I-526E petitions under the RIA (known as Form I-797) show that the I-526E Petitions for investments in High Unemployment Areas (“HUAs”) were approved in two categories i.e., (1) reserved and (2) unreserved visa categories.

The notices state: “If you are eligible for more than one visa classification, you will be required to identify the visa classification on which you will seek to adjust,” or “you will be required to identify which visa classification you will seek to obtain before proceeding with immigrant visa processing.”

The NVC has taken the practice of writing to Donoso & Partners seeking a selection for each petitioner of one of the two reserved categories. The NVC requests a reasons by sending a decision to using the Public Inquiry Form at: https://nvc.state.gov/inquiry. This optionality enables investors to select the EB-5 visa sub-category that offers the faster path for them.

Aarushi Gupta, Managing Director of India Operations for Donoso & Partners, reacted positively to these developments: “We welcome the use of Dual Approval Code by USCIS in the EB-5 category and strongly believe that this would prove to be a game changer.”

Ignacio Donoso, Founder and Managing Partner of Donoso & Partners, shared that this new and helpful approach “could be extremely beneficial to retain the supply of reserved visas for Chinese and Indian nationals and others subject to a per-country limitation, thereby in preventing wastage of reserved visas and ultimately lead to reducing chances of a potential visa backlog.”

Donoso & Partners, a leading immigration law firm based in Washington, D.C., will continue to report on developments regarding the immigration law and policy through our news section of donosolaw.com.