Visa availability often does. Where demand in a category exceeds supply for an applicant's country of chargeability, the Visa Bulletin governs when a visa can be issued, and the capital must remain invested and at risk throughout the wait rather than being withdrawn while the queue moves.
Ready money does not shorten a queue
Hypothetical example: Nicolas has his capital available and a project willing to accept it, and assumes the only variable is processing speed. Two clocks actually run. The first is adjudication of the petition itself.
The second is visa availability, published monthly in the Visa Bulletin, which depends on the applicant's country of chargeability and can move backwards as well as forwards. Throughout both, the capital must be sustained in the enterprise and remain at risk; an arrangement that lets him park the money and pay it in later, or take it out during a delay, is inconsistent with the requirement. Once conditional permanent residence begins, the two-year period runs, and the Form I-829 petition must be filed in the ninety days before it ends.
Planning backwards from that filing, rather than forwards from today, is what keeps the job-creation evidence and the family's dates aligned.
- USCIS: EB-5 immigrant investor program
- USCIS: EB-5 immigrant investor program, permanent workers
- USCIS Policy Manual, Volume 6 Part G: investors
- 8 U.S.C. 1153(b)(5): employment creation, capital amounts and job requirement
- USCIS: Form I-829, petition by investor to remove conditions on permanent resident status
- Department of State: Visa Bulletin
- USCIS: Child Status Protection Act
- USCIS: Form G-1055, fee schedule