Yes, if he is engaged in policy formulation rather than merely holding an interest. Rights equivalent to a limited partner's under the Uniform Limited Partnership Act, exercised in fact, satisfy the requirement; a purely passive membership does not.
Policy formulation is a real role, written down and exercised
The rules do not require an investor to manage daily operations, which is what makes multi-investor direct projects workable, but they do require more than money. The recognised alternative is engagement in policy formulation, and the benchmark is the bundle of rights a limited partner holds: to vote on admitting or removing members, on selling substantially all of the assets, on dissolving the enterprise and on amending the governing agreement. Those rights belong in the operating agreement before any petition is filed.
Evidence that they are more than words matters as much: minutes of member meetings, recorded votes on the mill's capital budget and off-take agreements, and correspondence showing he was consulted on decisions of that character. An investor who signs a subscription agreement, receives distributions and never appears in a minute book has a weak record, whatever the agreement says on paper. Hypothetical example: a Hope window-manufacturing owner joins a direct U.S.
factory project with several investors and receives voting rights over major company actions. The first review asks whether those rights amount to real policy participation and whether the project’s workforce plan allocates the needed job creation to each petition. The operating agreement and meeting records settle participation; payroll forecasts and hiring assumptions settle the jobs analysis.
The investor should decide before subscribing whether the governance rights will be usable in practice. EB-5 requires qualifying capital exposed to business risk, the required employment creation, and residence that begins on a conditional basis.