BOSTON — The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, the agency responsible for overseeing legal immigration in the country, may soon be in trouble as furlough notices are being sent to nearly two thirds of its staff.
Close to 70% of the agency’s staff, or 13,400 employees out of the 20,000 Americans currently employed by USCIS, will be furloughed and services will be suspended by August 3 if Congress and the Trump Administration cannot agree on a $1.2 billion infusion needed to keep the agency working.
While there have been talks over several emergency funding proposals, sources say lawmakers aren’t even close to a deal and aren’t sure if a bill could be passed before August.
Some USCIS employees say they received furlough notices as of last Friday and now, the week before 4th of July, those who will be affected will be notified.
During the beginning of the pandemic, the agency suspended its in-person services, including all interviews and naturalization ceremonies. The furlough notices come on the heels of the agency’s slow re-open of some of their field offices in June and July.
If the majority of staff is furloughed, visa and green card processing will slow down and citizenship-oath ceremonies will be halted, preventing many people from becoming citizens before the November elections.
Renewals for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program (DACA), which provides legal status and a path to citizenship for many children of undocumented immigrants, will also slow down.
USCIS is primarily fee-funded (about 97% of the agency’s funding comes from immigration fees) and typically continues most operations during lapses in funding, such as last year’s government shutdown. If the $1.2 billion funding is approved, a spokesperson for USCIS says the agency plans on paying back the money by issuing a 10% increase on their immigration fees.
The agency’s depleted funds appear to be the result of the administration’s policies that decreased the number of petitions - and thus fees - received by USCIS, said Sarah Pierce, a policy analyst for the US Immigration Policy Program at the Migration Policy Institute. As fees dropped off, costs went up for vetting and fraud detection, according to Pierce.
The news comes just weeks after the Trump Administration released an executive order placing new restrictions on employment-based visas, effectively shutting out thousands of skilled workers and their families from coming into the country.
CNN contributed to this report
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