International Entrepreneur Program: Fiscal Year 2025 Automatic Increase of Investment and Revenue Amount Requirements

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY <SUBAGY>U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services</SUBAGY> <CFR>8 CFR Part 212</CFR> <DEPDOC>[CIS No. 2769-24; DHS Docket No. USCIS-2021-0018]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1615-AC75</RIN> <SUBJECT>International Entrepreneur Program: Fiscal Year 2025 Automatic Increase of Investment and Revenue Amount Requirements</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), Department of Homeland Security (DHS). <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Final rule; technical amendment. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> On January 17, 2017, DHS published a final rule with new regulatory provisions guiding the use of parole on a case-by-case basis with respect to certain entrepreneurs of start-up entities. The 2017 regulation provided that the investment and revenue amount requirements would automatically adjust every three years. DHS is issuing this rule to update the investment and revenue amounts in the regulations to adjust for inflation. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This final rule is effective on October 1, 2024. </EFFDATE> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> For technical questions only: Charles L. Nimick, Chief, Business and Foreign Workers Division, Office of Policy and Strategy, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, Department of Homeland Security, 5900 Capital Gateway Drive, Camp Springs, MD 20588-0009, telephone (240) 721-3000 (this is not a toll-free number). </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Background</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. The International Entrepreneur Program</HD> On January 17, 2017, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) published a final rule with new regulatory provisions guiding the use of parole on a case-by-case basis with respect to entrepreneurs of start-up entities. These entrepreneurs would be eligible for consideration of parole if they could demonstrate a significant public benefit to the United States through substantial and demonstrated potential for rapid business growth and job creation. <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> The final rule was to be effective July 17, 2017. <SU>2</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>  82 FR 5238 (Jan. 17, 2017). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>2</SU>   <E T="03">Id.</E> </FTNT> On July 11, 2017, DHS published a rule delaying the effective date to March 14, 2018. <SU>3</SU> <FTREF/> Two individuals, two businesses, and the National Venture Capital Association sued DHS, challenging the delay rule for violating the Administrative Procedure Act's notice and comment requirement at 5 U.S.C. 553. The D.C. Circuit, agreeing with the plaintiffs, vacated the delay rule on December 1, 2017, allowing the rule to go into effect without further delay. <SU>4</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>3</SU>  82 FR 31887 (July 11, 2017). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>4</SU>   <E T="03">Nat'l Venture Capital Assoc., et al.,</E> v. <E T="03">Duke,</E> 291 F. Supp. 3d 5 (D.D.C. Dec. 1, 2017). </FTNT> The regulatory provisions established by the January 17, 2017 rule, which were implemented after the delay rule was vacated on December 1, 2017, <SU>5</SU> <FTREF/> provide specific investment and revenue amounts that can support an application for parole and re-parole. <SU>6</SU> <FTREF/> The rule also promulgated a regulatory provision at 8 CFR 212.19(l) stating that the investment and revenue amounts will be automatically adjusted every 3 years by the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) and posted on the USCIS website at <E T="03">www.uscis.gov</E> and that investment and revenue amounts adjusted under 8 CFR 212.19(l) will apply to all applications filed on or after the beginning of the fiscal year for which the adjustment is made. <SU>7</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>5</SU>  On May 29, 2018, DHS published a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) to remove the international entrepreneur program from DHS regulations, but never finalized the proposal. <E T="03">See</E> 83 FR 24415 (May 29, 2018). Instead, on May 11, 2021, DHS withdrew the NPRM. <E T="03">See</E> 86 FR 25809 (May 11, 2021). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>6</SU>   <E T="03">See</E> 8 CFR 212.19(a)(5), (b)(2)(ii), and (c)(2)(ii). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>7</SU>  While DHS did not discuss these automatic adjustments in the preamble to the final rule, DHS explained in the proposed rule that it believed that automatically adjusting the minimum dollar amounts by the CPI-U every 3 years will maintain investment and revenue requirements at an appropriate level in relation to future economic conditions. DHS also believed automatically adjusting the minimum dollar amounts in 3-year increments would be more manageable operationally for DHS and less burdensome to applicants than adjustments at more frequent intervals. <E T="03">See generally</E> 81 FR 60129, 60151 (Aug. 31, 2016). </FTNT> <HD SOURCE="HD2">B. Investment and Revenue Increased for Fiscal Year 2022</HD> On September 13, 2021, DHS issued a final rule (the 2021 final rule) adjusting the investment and revenue amounts beginning in FY 2022. <SU>8</SU> <FTREF/> The automatic adjustment required by 8 CFR 212.19(l) affected the amounts then stated in 8 CFR 212.19(a)(5) (2020) (no less than $600,000 in aggregate investments by the qualifying investor and at least $500,000 in revenue by at least two entities), 8 CFR 212.19(b)(2)(ii)(B) (2020) (at least $250,000 in investments or at least $100,000 in government awards or grants), and 8 CFR 212.19(c)(2)(ii)(B) (2020) (at least $500,000 in additional investment or revenue). As shown in the 2021 final rule, these amounts were adjusted for inflation using the CPI-U calculator published by the Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics. <SU>9</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>8</SU>  86 FR 50839 (Sept. 13, 2021). The current amounts and analysis for calculating them appears in that rule. </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>9</SU>   <E T="03">See https://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm.</E> </FTNT> In light of these automatic adjustments in December 2020, beginning in FY 2022, under 8 CFR 212.19(b)(2)(ii)(B) as updated by the 2021 final rule, an applicant may be considered for initial parole, on a case-by-case basis, if they demonstrate that their entity has received, within 18 months immediately preceding the filing of an application for initial parole, either a qualified investment amount of at least $264,147 from one or more qualified investors or an amount of at least $105,659 through one or more qualified government awards or grants. In the alternative, an applicant who partially meets one or both of those criteria may still qualify for further consideration by providing other reliable and compelling evidence of the start-up entity's substantial potential for rapid growth and job creation. Similarly, revised 8 CFR 212.19(c)(2)(ii)(B) provided that an applicant may be considered for re-parole if they establish that during the initial parole period, their entity: • Received at least $528,293 in qualifying investments, qualified government grants or awards, or a combination of such funding, during the initial parole period; • Created at least 5 qualified jobs with the start-up entity during the initial parole period; or • Reached at least $528,293 in annual revenue in the United States and averaged 20 percent in annual revenue growth during the initial parole period. In the alternative, an applicant who meets the criteria in paragraph (c)(2)(ii)(A) and partially meets one or more of the criteria in paragraph (c)(2)(ii)(B) of § 212.19 could still qualify for consideration for re-parole by providing other reliable and compelling evidence of the start-up entity's substantial potential for rapid growth and job creation. Finally, revised 8 CFR 212.19(a)(5) defined a qualified investor as an individual or investor who, among other requirements, has made investments in start-up entities comprising a total of no less than $633,952 in a specified 5-year period and, subsequent to the investment, at least two of those entities each created at least 5 jobs or generated at least $528,293 in revenue with an average annualized revenue growth of at least 20 percent. The revised amounts in the 2021 final rule were also posted on the USCIS website, <E T="03">https://www.uscis.gov/working-in-the-united-states/entrepreneur-employment-pathways/nonimmigrant-or-parole-pathways-for-entrepreneur-employment-in-the-united-states.</E> <HD SOURCE="HD2">C. Investment and Revenue Increase Beginning With Fiscal Year 2025</HD> In this final rule and in accordance with the 2017 final rule, DHS calculates new investment and revenue amounts and revises the applicable provisions to adjust for inflation. <SU>10</SU> <FTREF/> According to the CPI-U calculator, $105,659 in December 2020 had a present dollar value of $124,429 in December of 2023 (FY 2024); and $264,147 in December 2020 had a present dollar value of $311,071 in December 2023. The CPI-U calculator also showed that $528,293 in December 2020 had a present dollar value of $622,142 in December 2023; and $633,952 in December 2020 had a present dollar value of $746,571 in December 2023. Beginning in Fiscal Year 2025 ( <E T="03">i.e.,</E> beginning October 1, 2024), under 8 CFR 212.19(b)(2)(ii)(B) as updated by this final rule, an applicant may be considered for initial parole on a case-by-case basis if they demonstrate that their entity has received, within 18 months immediately preceding the filing of an application for initial parole, either a qualified investment amount of at least $311,071 from one or more qualified investors or an amount of at least $124,429 through one or more qualified government awards or grants. <SU>11</SU> <FTREF/> In the alternative, an applicant who partially meets one or both of thos ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 27k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━