Fredrick W Voigtmann
Immigration AttorneySometimes the regional center owns the project, but more often, the regional center contracts with a project developer. The regional center has received and owns the USCIS designation. The project developer likely owns the rights to develop a certain project that might benefit from EB-5 capital. The two negotiate terms and come to an agreement about who bears certain responsibilities and what role EB-5 capital will play in the project, i.e., loan model/equity model, mezz. financing, place in capital stack, exit strategy, etc. Then the regional center often will prepare an exemplar, which contains all of the project documents, and submit it to USCIS for consideration. With an exemplar approval, USCIS will grant deference to any regional center investors in that particular project, assuming they file the same business plan, economic report, and transactional documents. "Deference" just means that USCIS will defer to its prior adjudication when it approved the exemplar and that it will not re-adjudicate those issues on every I-526 submission.