Question:

Although USCIS does not formally track the specific reasons for application denial, they stated in a stakeholders meeting that anecdotally some of the the most common reasons for denials include:

I-526 Denials
- Non-compliant amount and lawful source of capital investment funds.
- Insufficient level of job creation (demonstrating that the investment will create the requisite number of jobs).
- Improper official Targeted Employment Area (TEA) determinations.

I-829 Denials
- Not sustaining the capital investment over the required time.
- Job creation; demonstrating that the investment has created (or can be expected to create) - the requisite number of jobs within a reasonable period of time.

The most time consuming part is to provide an explanation and paper trail regarding the source of the investor's funds.

The issue that causes most problems is the documentation of the source of funds.

Paperwork deficiencies is the worst problem. Can you prove that the money is lawful? Does the plan for job creation pass the tests? Those tests would be: 1.) the laugh test, 2.) the sniff test, and 3.) withstanding an in-depth evaluation under serious logical and mathematical scrutiny.

The issue that causes the most problem for the investor is documenting source of funds.