How long does it take a Vietnamese EB-5 investor to get a green card?

The Investor Petition to USCIS (Form I-526) is currently running two to four years for processing. Green card availability for Vietnamese investors may also be delayed, depending on which visa availability chart USCIS is using at the time. If adjusting status, it looks like they can adjust right now. If not, cases filed all the way back in 2016 are being processed.

It is a pity you used an immigration consultant rather than an EB-5 attorney. You should not rely on what a consultant told you as he or she was not qualified to practice law. Your research actually comes close because, as late as October 2019, the Vietnamese petitions which were experiencing retrogression because of massive oversubscription indicated it could take 7.2 years from I-526 to I-829.

USCIS takes approximately two to three years to adjudicate an I-526 petition. The guidance issued last week suggests I-526 adjudication will take longer for nationals of countries with a visa backlog, which includes Vietnam. No one knows with certainty how long it will take for a visa to become available for a priority date in 2019, but you should not make any specific plans. Vague plans may be OK for five to seven years from now.

No one can precisely predict exactly how long it will take for visa issuance but Vietnam is an oversubscribed country. Visa petitions currently take about two to three years to get adjudicated, however, US immigration is now planning to process non-backlogged countries first so even this first step may take longer. In October 2019, Mr. Charles Oppenheim, Chief of Immigrant Visa Control & Reporting Division of the U.S. Department of State, presented at the IIUSA EB-5 Industry Forum. His presentation provided an estimate for about 7.1 years. Your case should take a few months less so plan on over 6 years.

Processing times for an I-526 petitions average 32.5 to 49.5 months. See https://egov.uscis.gov/processing-times/. USCIS recently announced, however, that it will prioritize I-526 processing based on immigrant visa number availability. While this change will not delay the issuance of your conditional green card, it may delay the processing of your I-526 petition. Your priority date, August 2019, will not change and will continue to determine your place in line for purposes of the per-country cap and immigrant visa number retrogression. No one knows for sure how long a Vietnam-born EB-5 investor will have to wait until his/her priority date becomes current. We do know that as of February 2020, Vietnamese EB-5 investors who filed their I-526 petitions before December 15, 2016 will have an available immigrant visa number. I-526 petitions filed before that date will have to wait. The unknown factor is how many Vietnamese EB-5 investors are in front of you in the queue, i.e., how many I-526 petitions were filed and are still currently in the pipeline between December 2016 and August 2019. There might be several years worth of inventory in front of your case, waiting for an available immigrant visa number. It is likely that whenever your priority date is near to being current, USCIS will adjudicate your I-526 petition and, if approved, you will able to move forward with immigrant visa processing or adjustment of status, whichever is appropriate.

There is no way to know for sure. The I-526 cases are taking two to four years and then you need to check the Visa Bulletin for EB-5 Vietnam which changes monthly. Your Priority Date is set on the day you file the I-526 with USCIS.