Data Collection and Verification Process

EB5Status draws from seven official data sources, listed here in priority order. When sources conflict, higher-priority sources take precedence.

1. 1.U.S. Department of State Visa Bulletin
   Official Data
2. 2.USCIS Published Statistics
   Official Data
3. 3.USCIS Processing Times Tool
   Official Data
4. 4.Federal Register
   Official Data
5. 5.USCIS Policy Manual
   Official Data
6. 6.USCIS Administrative Appeals Office (AAO) Decisions
   Official Data
7. 7.EB5Status FOIA Data
   FOIA Data

Sources 1 through 6 carry the Blue (Official) trust tier because they are proactively published by U.S. government agencies. Source 7 carries the Green (FOIA) trust tier because the data is official government data obtained through a formal request rather than proactive publication.

For a complete explanation of how we assign trust tiers, see our Trust Tier Definitions page.

Different sources publish on different schedules. We align our collection cadence to match:

For detailed freshness commitments and staleness thresholds, see our Data Update Schedule page.

Every data point published on EB5Status passes through a verification process before it appears on the site:

1. 1.Source capture. We record the raw data exactly as published, including the source URL, publication date, and the date and time we captured it.
2. 2.Cross-reference check. Each data point is compared against the published source to confirm accuracy. For numerical data, we verify that our captured value matches the original exactly.
3. 3.Consistency check. New data is compared against prior data points for the same metric to identify anomalies. An unexpected large change triggers manual review of the original source.
4. 4.Trust tier assignment. The appropriate trust tier is assigned based on the source, not the content. Government publications receive Blue; FOIA data receives Green; calculations from official data receive Gray.
5. 5.Publication. Verified data is published to the site with its trust tier badge, source attribution, and capture date visible to all users.

Any discrepancy between our data and the published source triggers an immediate correction. We do not wait for users to report errors. Our monitoring includes automated checks that flag potential mismatches within 24 hours of data capture.

We submit quarterly Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to USCIS for detailed petition data that is not available through proactively published statistics. This includes service center level breakdowns, processing time distributions, and petition outcome details that provide granularity beyond what USCIS publishes on its website.

FOIA data follows a specific publication timeline on EB5Status:

1. 1.Receipt and verification. When we receive a FOIA response, we verify it against known data points and check for internal consistency.
2. 2.60 day paid exclusive window. Verified FOIA data is first made available to Pro subscribers, who receive full access to the structured data, charts, and downloadable formats.
3. 3.Free narrative release. After the exclusive window, we publish a narrative summary of the FOIA findings available to all users, including free accounts.
4. 4.Public tracker status. The public FOIA tracker page shows which requests are pending, received, and published, so all users can see what data is in the pipeline.

Transparency about what we exclude is as important as transparency about what we include. We do not collect data from the following categories:

• •Industry webinars and marketing materials. Claims made in promotional contexts are not verifiable and are excluded from our dataset.
• •Competitor websites. We do not scrape or reproduce data published by other EB-5 information providers.
• •Unverifiable claims. Anecdotal reports, social media posts, and forum discussions are not used as data inputs regardless of how frequently they are repeated.
• •Anonymized user data. We do not collect, aggregate, or publish data derived from the behavior of EB5Status users.

When industry sources (such as IIUSA reports or practitioner surveys) provide context that we believe is valuable, we may reference them with the Yellow (Estimated) trust tier and clear attribution. They are never presented as primary evidence.

When we identify an error in our published data, whether through our own monitoring or through a user report, we follow a standard correction process:

1. 1.Immediate acknowledgment. We confirm receipt of the error report within 48 hours.
2. 2.Source verification. We check the original source to determine whether the error is in our data capture or in the original publication.
3. 3.Correction publication. We publish a correction on our corrections page that includes the original value, the corrected value, the date of correction, and a plain language explanation of what happened.
4. 4.Site update. The affected data point is corrected on all pages where it appears. We do not silently update data; every correction is documented.

To report an error, email data@eb5status.com. We respond to factual corrections within 48 hours and methodology questions within 5 business days.

Trust Tier Definitions | How we assign and display data provenance badges across the site.

Data Update Schedule | Our freshness commitments for each data source.

Full Methodology | Our complete data methodology, including confidence labels, calculation descriptions, and non-negotiable rules.