The American Immigrant Investor Alliance (AIIA) has filed a federal class action lawsuit against U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) in the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington, seeking declaratory relief and a refund of filing fees that were ruled unlawful.
“Because EB-5 stakeholders deserve an advocate with no divided loyalties and no narrow constituency to protect, AIIA mobilized, litigated, and prevailed against USCIS’s unlawful fee increases, and now we have taken the next step to ensure that victory is felt not just in policy, but as real, tangible relief for every investor and regional center operator who bore the cost of those unlawful actions,” said Ishaan Khanna, president of AIIA.
The lawsuit was filed by The Galati Law Firm, LLC, and Wasden LLC, on behalf of EB-5 investors and regional center operators who filed EB-5 petitions and paid the charges between April 1, 2024, and November 12, 2025.
This legal action follows a court ruling in November 2025 in favor of AIIA’s claim that the fee hike was unlawful.
Litigation attorney Robert Cornish of the Law Offices of Robert V. Cornish Jr. said this case shows “the growing maturity of EB-5 clients and practitioners to intentionally position important cases against USCIS in forums that view immigration matters more favorably than others.”
He noted the importance of the lawsuit’s filing location. “This case was not brought in the District of Columbia, where many efforts to sue USCIS on a variety of things of concern to EB-5 investors have met unceremonious endings. Rather, this case is being heard in the federal court in Seattle, which sits in the 9th Circuit. The 9th Circuit generally views class actions more favorably than the DC Circuit.”
Why did USCIS first increase the EB-5 fees and then lower them?
At the heart of the lawsuit is the claim that USCIS increased EB-5 filing fees in 2024 — by more than 150% for several key forms — without completing a legally required fee study by March 15, 2023. AIIA argues that the U.S. immigration agency therefore exceeded its authority in collecting the higher fees from EB-5 applicants.
For EB-5, the largest changes affected the prices of Forms I-526/I-526E, which increased by 204% to $11,160; Form I-956G, by 47% to $4,470; and Form I-956F, used to obtain approval for regional center designation, rose 168% to $47,695.
The November 2025 court ruling reverted the amounts to pre-April 1, 2024 levels. Thus, the EB-5 Form I-526/I-526E fees have been reduced to $3,675 from $11,160, and Form I-829 is now $3,750, down from $9,525, among the EB-5 application fees.
AIIA now demands that USCIS return the difference between the original and increased fees to all individuals who filed EB-5 petitions during the affected period. All investors and regional center operators who paid the increased fees during this window may be eligible to participate in the class action, said the association in a press release.
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