Two months ago USCIS announced that 41 of its forms could be paid with credit cards.
At that time it had a list of forms that could be paid with credit cards, including the I-829, the form that immigrant investors in the EB-5 program use when they try to convert their temporary legal status to full-fledged green card status.
There were more pressing immigration policy matters so I did not write about the credit card usage, which I regard as a sure-fire way to increase migration, until April 16.
I noted the irony that the I-829, which can only be used by the very richest of aliens, was on the list. I also pointed out, in passing, that while a poor alien using a credit card might very well have to pay interest on his or her filing fees, that a prompt-paying, rich one might actually get a 1 percent or so refund, thus further separating the rich from the poor.
On April 19 – which was perhaps co-incidentally three days after my report – the agency published a correction, saying:
Unfortunately, the [prior USCIS] announcement mistakenly included Form I-829, Petition by Entrepreneur to Remove Conditions on Permanent Resident Status. We have since removed the I-829 from the list because it is not among the forms processed at a USCIS Lockbox.
Different USCIS forms are handled in different places; some are handled at service centers, and others at facilities called "lockboxes." The I-829s are supposed to be send to the California Service Center at Laguna Niguel, Calif., and since this is not a "lockbox" no credit cards can be used.
But, very rich aliens, do not despair!
USCIS has not lost interest in your cash-flow plight!
A much more commonly used form in the EB-5 program, the I-526, remains on the list of lockbox forms, or did on the afternoon of April 19. This form is the initial one filed by the rich alien who wants to make a $500,000 investment in the U.S. in order to secure a set of green cards for the investor and the investor's family later. There are rather more of these filed than the I-829s, and the fee for it is $3,675, the second highest fee on the USCIS list for individuals, second only to the $3,750 which those filing the I-829 will now have to pay by cash or money order.
So one of the two forms filed by EB-5 aliens can be paid with a credit card, but another, less often used form, cannot.
You might think that the two forms for the EB-5 program would be handled by the same people at the same place. It would make a certain amount of sense, but apparently they are not. Interesting.
The confusion on this fairly minor point – which EB-5 forms are payable by credit cards and which are not – is just another one of the indications that this is a questionable and controversial program. The larger topics, are, of course, whether rich aliens should be allowed to buy their way into this country and, if we have such a program, whether we need to continue to tolerate massive corruption within it.
Bounced checks. In my April 16 posting I said I was puzzled as to why an administration dedicated to reining in immigration should take such an obvious step – accepting credit cards – towards expanding migration and making it happen more quickly. My colleague, Dan Cadman, suggested a common-sense answer that had not been offered in any of the USCIS statements about this issue, and had not occurred to me: Bouncing checks.
He said that the agency had a lot of them, and coping with them is more expensive than paying credit card fees. We both wondered: Did those applicants whose checks bounced get the benefits they wanted anyway? Good question.