Wen-Wan Chang v. United States

Plaintiff-Appellants are seven “Immigrant Investors” who have participated in the “EB-5” program, which grants lawful permanent resident (“LPR”) status in the United States to those who make qualifying investments under the Immigrant Investor Law (“IIL”), 8 U.S.C. §§ 1153 (b)(5), 1186b; 8 C.F.R. §§ 204.6 , 216.6. 1 Appel *916 lants complain that in 1998, after their investment proposals and business plans had been approved and they and their dependents had moved to the United States, the Immigration and Naturalization Service (“INS”) changed the rules of the EB-5 program. Appellants contend that the INS applied these new rules to reject their applications at a stage in the process that called only for confirmation that they had fulfilled their part of the originally approved bargain. The government counters, inter alia, that new amendments to EB-5 in November, 2002 render the instant case moot and establish a new exhaustion requirement for some plaintiffs.

We hold that the recent amendments to EB-5 neither render this case moot nor establish an additional administrative appeal that plaintiffs must exhaust before obtaining judicial review. We hold further that the district court…