引言：在著名律师、前美国移民律协主席 Ron Klasko 1月7日发表针对美国移民局的公开信(兆龙移民此前已将全文翻译发出)之后，美国投资移民领域掀起了的热烈讨论。两天之后，另一位著名律师Robert C.Divine针对这封公开信也发表了自己的看法和意见。对Klasko律师公开信中的10条建议，Divine律师有褒有贬。他非常赞同对于“打包申请”和电子化申请程序的建议，以及增设对I-829申请的及时更新机制。但他也指出，其中一些建议的理论意义大于实际意义，而诸如公开区域中心数据的建议甚至是弊大于利的。总的来说，Divine律师又从另一个视角为我们提供了关于EB-5审批程序改革的观点，而业界热烈的探讨也有利于提高美国移民局对美国EB-5投资移民改革的重视，最终让美国EB-5投资移民项目向更良性的方向发展，因此，我们很有必要持续关注近期业内的探讨情况。在此，兆龙移民特将Divine律师的原文翻译如下。

　　评论：

　　长期以来，美国移民局的EB-5审批程序一直饱受各方诟病。尤其是近些年来随着美国EB-5投资移民申请人数的增加，业界呼吁移民局改革审批程序、提高审批速度的呼声一浪高过一浪。而Ron Klasko律师在2015年新年伊始的公开信，被称为一张写给移民局的“大字报”，十条言之凿凿、措辞强硬的建议，不仅受到了业界的赞扬，也再次激起了业界对 EB-5项目冗杂审批程序的不满。但是，Robert C. Divine律师通过表达自己的看法和意见，让我们重新冷静地审视这封公开信的内容。的确，两位律师都认为，移民局现有的审批程序存在许多的问题，尤其是效率低下问题确实成为了EB-5发展的掣肘。通过电子申请系统和“打包申请”制度，确实能够提高效率，将复杂的问题简单化。

　　但既然改革是为了提高效率，那么在Divine律师看来，公开信的有些建议，虽然乍一看很有道理，但实际实施起来，不是可行性低，就是弊大于利。例如，对投资者和开发者的律师加以区分，会使得新企业也会单独作为一方进入申请当中，这只会使事态更加复杂，反而变成了画蛇添足。再如，目前移民局一直不公开区域中心的数据，虽然被认为是降低信息透明度，但Divine律师认为，这么做是为了避免这些数据可能产生误导或者被别有用心的人滥加使用，最终还是为了保护投资者。同时，在本文中Divine律师还对个别问题进行了更深的探讨。例如，针对在I-829阶段如何应对项目实质性变更的问题，作者认为，最核心的问题不是建立即时变更申请的途径，而是在前期就确立“实质性”的标准，或者让移民局直接判定变更后的项目是否还符合EB-5的要求。

　　总的来说，Divine律师的这篇文章，让我们从Klasko公开信激起的高涨热情中走出来，重新冷静、客观地来审视EB-5的程序改革问题，特别是从另一个角度来了解和评价现有程序。固然，现有的审批程序存在着诸多的问题，但它并不是一无是处的。某些手续的冗长和繁复，的确拖慢了整个审批的节奏，但它确实是为了减少投资和项目的风险而存在的。同样，不论是对Ron Klasko律师的观点，还是对Robert C. Divine律师的观点，我们都要一直保持一个冷静、专业、客观的态度。毕竟兼听则明，对任何一方的观点，我们认可其言之有理之处，探讨其有待商榷之处，才能全面地看待整个EB-5的改革，真正把握EB-5项目的未来发展趋势

　　著名律师 Robert C.Divine对Klasko 律师公开信的意见

　　作者： Robert C. Divine

　　翻译：兆龙移民(转载请注明来源)

　　中英文对照版：

　　I appreciate Ron Klasko's suggestions posted yesterday for procedural improvements to USCIS' administration of the EB-5 program. For the sake of USCIS' consideration and stimulating further discussion, I lodge publicly and to USCIS my reactions to those suggestions.

　　我非常感谢Ron Klasko先生昨天向美国移民局提出的对 EB-5项目处理程序的建议。为了使移民局能够更重视这件事情，也为了抛砖引玉，促进大家对此的研讨，在这里，我向大众和移民局表达我对这些建议的感受和意见。
 

　　Most importantly, I agree with suggestions 1, 2, 3, 7, and 8. USCIS should shift resources to adjudicate within 3 months (not 4) an exemplar petition for the approval of a project. This should be filed electronically to form the basis of a "deal package" through a process that needs improvement from the cumbersome present mechanics. If USCIS has questions, it can ask them to the right party once on the front end, not to 100 investors who already subscribed. Upon approval, the "new commercial enterprise" (NCE) can market the approved project and subscribe investors whose petitions should be filed electronically to link to the approved "deal package" and should be expedited because they only need review of source and path of that investor's funds. make it easier for regional centers to post "deal packages." Yet, USCIS should allow investors to file I-526 petitions and link to deal packages without waiting for project approval if they want, and any systematic expediting of the petitions could be implemented electronically when the linked deal package becomes approved.

　　首先，我个人非常赞同Klasko先生的第1、2、3、7、8条建议。移民局应当重新分配资源，将审批开发项目样板申请的时间压缩到3个月以内(而非4个月)，且这一申请应当采用电子形式提交。同时，移民局还要对现有的冗杂繁复的审批机制加以改革和运用，以便形成“打包申请”。如果移民局对项目有任何问题，它们就能只向正确的对象发出一次询问，而不是向已投资的100名投资者每人都问一次。而在取得开发项目的批准之后，这一新企业( NCE)就能将项目推向市场，并且投资者可以通过电子方式提交申请，并与“打包申请”连接起来。对这些投资者的申请应当以更快的速度完成审批，因为这些申请只需要审批资金的来源和途径，同时也让区域中心能够更容易地推出“打包申请”。但与此同时，如果投资者不想等开发项目获批之后再投资，移民局也应当允许他们直接提交I-526申请并将其与“打包申请”相连接。并且当某个“打包申请”整体获批之后，与之相关联的所有I-526电子申请审批速度都能整体加快。
 

　　The same approach needs to be applied to I-829 filings to save thousands of trees. Because early-immigrating investors can end up filing I-829 petitions long before others and while the project is still developing, the electronic system needs to facilitate layered updating of the "deal package" equivalent for the I-829 stage in order to allow the developer to show an ever-increasing job count to cover the increasing number of investors as they file their I-829s corresponding to the project package.

　　同时，在I-829的申请上也应采用与上文同样的方式以减少树木砍伐(兆龙注：即采取电子方式提交申请)。因为先办移民手续的投资者可以比其他人提前很久就完成I-829的申请，所以现有电子申请系统应当允许在I-829阶段对“打包申请”进行分层更新，这样项目方就能及时将岗位增加的信息更新上去，进而满足新增投资者的I-829申请条件。
 

　　These proposals are not new, and for the most part USCIS in fact already included them in a "Proposal for Comment" published on May 19, 2011 with fanfare and introduced by then Director Alejandro Mayorkas himself (now DHS Deputy Secretary). USCIS proposed to adjudicate "shovel ready" projects in 4 months and to allow "premium processing" (3 weeks for extra $1225) for related I-526 petitions. Other parts of that proposal-- regarding email communications about regional center filings and a review board before regional center project denials-- have been implemented. It seems plain that USCIS held back on the rest in the swirl of program leadership and location changes and allegations of favoritism and national security vulnerabilities in the meantime. Three weeks might be too fast given some security vetting USCIS may conduct, but generally expediting such petitions would encourage everyone to use the sensible exemplar process. USCIS has not even referred to the proposals in any ensuing stakeholder meeting. They need to get back to it and get it done.

　　这些建议并不是新提出的。实际上， 2011年5月19日，移民局在公开发布的、并由时任移民局局长Alejandro Mayorkas(现为国土安全部副部长)所介绍的“供公众研讨的建议”中已经涉及到了这些内容。移民局打算将针对即将动工的项目的审查时间限定在4个月以内，并且允许对相关联的I-526申请优先进行审查(另行支付1225美元，时间缩短至3周)。移民局的其他建议，例如通过电邮方式与区域中心交涉申请事宜，以及在拒绝批准区域中心项目之前提供一个异议机制等建议，也已经实施了。不过，显而易见的是，美国移民局依然继续维持其在EB-5项目其他方面的领导力，并且同时显示出了对部分申请者的偏袒和对国家安全的担忧。用3周的时间进行相关的国家安全审查对移民局来说可能有些太快了，但是总的来说，加速审批时间才会真正鼓励大家使用这个有效果的样板处理程序。不过，在之后的所有多方会议上，移民局对这些建议甚至提都没有再提到过。所以，移民局应当重新着眼在这些建议上，并且尽力让它们落到实处。
 

　　Proposal 4-- for USCIS to deliberately hold petitions of investors with children subject to age out until their visa number would be available-- is intriguing but much trickier to implement than it sounds and therefore deserving of more comment by others. First, many projects hold funds in escrow until I-526 approval, and this proposal would frustrate the funding needs of such projects. Developers would need a way to require investors choosing for delayed adjudication to forego escrow. Second, the availability of visa numbers is an ever-shifting phenomenon, and USCIS has no control over the advancements and retrogressions that tend to occur, so it is unclear how USCIS could know how long to hold an I-526.

　　第4条建议——即让移民局特意将子女可能超龄的申请者的I-526申请暂时搁置起来，直到轮到他们可以办理签证申请的时候(兆龙注：这样可以变相锁定子女年龄，避免子女超龄)——是一个表面上看起来不错，不过实施起来非常复杂的建议。因此，这条建议还有待各方研讨。首先，许多项目的投资被保管在第三方的机构当中，直到I-526申请获批之后资金才能被放出来，因此这项建议将会使许多项目的资金来源出现问题，项目方不得不想办法能让申请者选择推迟I-526审批，进而先把投资款放出来。第二，可以办理签证的时间总是在变的，而移民局对这一时间的提前和倒退是无法控制的。所以，移民局实际上无法确定应将这些I-526申请搁置多长时间。
 

　　I disagree with proposals 5, 6, and 10.

　　除此之外，就我个人而言，我对Klasko先生的第5、6、10条建议不太赞同。
 

　　As to proposal 5, the law actually gives USCIS authority to speed regional center-sponsored petitions over others, not the other way around, and USCIS should not reverse enacted congressional policy. Instead, USCIS should be more reasonable in its requirement/ of "substantial steps" taken by investors in small investor-managed projects /before filing an I-526 petition in light of the inability of the investor to be here to manage them. As long as the requisite investment funds are committed and a business plan to use them for job creation is shown, that should be enough. USCIS should quit extending the import of the first section of the precedent Matter of Ho decision (22 I&N Dec. 206 (BIA 1998)) beyond its actual holding-- that /a deposit of funds in a corporate account /and signing an assignable lease/ without any credible plan for how to spend the requisite capital in the job-creating business /is not enough.

　　就建议5而言，美国法律实际已经赋予了移民局加快区域中心投资者审批速度的权力，因此移民局也不能与法律和政策相违背。相反，对某些投资者自己运营的小型项目而言，针对这些投资者申请I-526之前的“实质性步骤”要求，移民局应当让其更加合理，因为这些投资者的确无法亲临美国运营这些项目。在我看来，只要所需资金到位，创造就业岗位的计划也已经成型，满足这些条件就已经够了。另外，移民局不应当在自己实际控制能力之外继续扩大对 Matter of Ho案(22 I&N Dec. 206 (BIA 1998)) 第一部分的援引，也就是说，即使在没有确信的就业创造资金使用计划的前提下，移民局也不能认定从一个公司账户中放款并签署可转让的借款合同是属于不满足条件的情况。
 

　　At times I have argued for proposal 6, but as Ron says if USCIS implements proposals 1, 2 and 3 the need for separate representation of regional center and investor in an I-526 essentially goes away. And one can argue that the NCE, which might be quite separate from the regional center, has at least as much stake in the I-526 and should be able to be represented as well. Let's avoid the complication by doing the most sensible things.

　　我还曾经多次讨论过建议6的内容，但如果像Klasko先生所说，如果移民局采纳了第1、2、3条建议，那么区域中心和投资者就不再需要在I-526当中各自单独成为一方了。要是真这么说，那么有人就还会认为，因为与区域中心相独立的新企业(NCE)在I-526中也具有重要的地位，因此它也应该单独成为一方。所以，我们应该做最有意义的事情，而不是让事态变得更加复杂。
 

　　I think proposal 9-- to provide a procedure for premature I-829 exemplar filing for approval of material changes-- is unnecessary in light of USCIS' policy in its May 30, 2013 memorandum that changes at I-829 stage are not deemed "material" and don't prevent I-829 approval if the changed project meets the ultimate investment and job creation requirements of the EB-5 program. The more substantive problem to be fixed is what happens with "material" changes that occur before an investor immigrates as a conditional resident, because USCIS says that results in denial or revocation of the I-526 petition and prevents conditional residence. There needs to be a way to determine whether or not a change is considered "material" in the early stages so that an investor facing some change can know whether the change requires starting over or not. Such a review process even should offer an advisory opportunity, so that investors (and their project developers) could seek review before making the change and avoid the change if it might be found material. As with later-stage changes, USCIS should clarify that the question for materiality of pre-immigration change should be whether the revised plan actually meets EB-5 requirements or not, not whether the changes could affect eligibility. And the implications of change to a plan that originally was not ineligible should not include loss of priority date and consequent loss of a child's immigration due to age-out, so USCIS stop denying and revoking changed approvable petitions and should by policy and regulation at least recognize the same priority date preservation rule for subsequent EB-5 petitions that it does for subsequent EB-1, 2 and 3 petitions.

　　此外，我认为建议9的实际作用不大。建议9的内容是，为已提交的I-829样板申请提供进行实质性变更申请的途径。根据移民局在2013年5月30日备忘录中的内容，如果某一项目在I-829阶段的变更不是实质性的，并且变更后的项目最终符合EB-5项目的投资与创造就业要求，这一项目的获批就不会受影响。不过，我们真正要解决的核心问题在于，如果在一名投资者获得临时绿卡之前，项目就发生了实质性变更，那么该怎么办?因为根据移民局的规定，这种情况会导致投资者的I-526申请被拒绝或者被驳回，进而无法取得临时绿卡。因此，在I-526申请的前期阶段，我们需要制定一个衡量变更的“实质性”的标准，这样投资者面对项目变更时，就能知道这些变更会不会导致重头开始I-526的申请。这个程序甚至还需要增加在变更前获得建议的机会，这样投资者和项目方在对项目进行变更之前就能再次评估，并且避免可能发生的实质性变更。而对于I-526申请的后期阶段，移民局应当明确回答变更后的项目是否满足EB-5项目的要求，而不是项目变更是否影响申请资格的问题。而对于项目的变更，如果一项变更被移民局认为导致申请者丧失申请资格，那么移民局不得因此也取消该申请者的优先日，进而也不能以子女超龄问题剥夺其子女共同移民的权利。所以，移民局应当停止拒绝和撤销变更后的申请，并且依据政策与法规，移民局至少应当和后续的EB-1、EB-2、EB-3申请一样，对后续的EB-5申请采用同样的优先日保留制度。
 

　　Proposal 10-- to publish regional center statistics-- sounds more attractive in the abstract than in reality. Most importantly, regional centers are not the NCEs, and increasingly are not in charge of NCEs, so a track record of the regional center is not necessarily reflective of the investment enterprise, good or bad. An NCE might need to use a regional center uniquely approved for the project's location, and could be unfairly disadvantaged in marketing by the regional center statistics. Perhaps more importantly, the statistics would be confusing. Some regional centers who encountered one of USCIS' infamous hard-line approaches to the "no redemption" requirement might have experienced massive denials followed by swift approval of all of the same investors, skewing the statistics in an unfair direction. Others who faced the same problem might have withdrawn petitions and re-filed, so the same essential results would look very different in approval rates. An investor can ask a regional center or developer about past success and should get meaningful answers. The rules prohibit securities issuers from misrepresenting such things as regional center track records, and that's enough, especially if the SEC spot checks some issuer claims. I'm usually for transparency, but proposal 10 would do more harm than good.

　　第10条建议——公开区域中心相关数据——只是在理论上比较有看头而已。首先，区域中心不是新企业，区域中心也不管理新企业，所以区域中心的相关数据并不能有效反映所投资企业运营状况的好坏。新企业唯一需要借助区域中心的地方只是需要区域中心批准企业的所在地，因此区域中心的数据会间接地影响新企业的市场推广状况。而更重要的一点在于，区域中心的相关数据可能具有误导性。有的区域中心可能会遭遇到移民局臭名昭著的“无法恢复”的要求，然后在大量的投资者申请都被拒绝之后，这些投资者的申请又迅速地通过了。这种情况会歪曲数据的指导性。而对于其他面对同样状况的申请者来说，他们可能会取消申请并重新提交，所以虽然最终结果相同，但申请批准率会产生非常大的差别。投资者通过了解区域中心或者开发者过去的记录，就可以获取到有用的信息，而不需要通过公开数据来多此一举。同时，现有的规则还避免了证券发行商通过区域中心数据发布错误信息，这一作用已经非常大了，特别是当证监会抽查一些证券发行商的时候。我一直认为信息的透明度是非常重要，但是第10条建议确实是一条弊大于利的建议。
 

　　来源：

　　http://discuss.ilw.com/content.php?3922-Article-Divine-s-Tweaks-to-Klasko-s-EB-5-Process-Proposals-By-Robert-C-Divine