Matter of Ho Compliance: What Separates an Approval from an Evidence Request
Deconstructing the 10 statutory requirements established in precedent decision Matter of Ho that every immigration business plan must incorporate.
Key Analytical Takeaways
- The 10 non-negotiable elements required under 22 I&N Dec. 206 (Assoc. Comm. 1998).
- Why generic internet market research draws credibility scrutiny from USCIS service centers.
- Ensuring financial assumptions in the narrative tie line-by-line to the financial pro formas.
Matter of Ho, 22 I&N Dec. 206, remains the bedrock standard governing EB-5 and commercial immigration business plans. In this seminal precedent decision, the Administrative Appeals Office (AAO) held that a comprehensive business plan must be verifiable, detailed, and credible.
Merely describing a high-level business concept is fatal to a petition. The plan must describe the business, its products or services, market objectives, competitive landscape, organizational chart, staffing timetable, job descriptions, licenses and permits, and detailed 5-year financial projections.
The most common cause of RFEs is internal inconsistency: a marketing section projecting 50 customers per day while the revenue model relies on 150, or a staffing table that omits supervisory layers required for an executive hierarchy. Every variable must tie out completely.
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