USCIS might be unable to meet its payroll this summer

[thongho2910 17]

Let's pray for them 🙏🙏🙏

 

 

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U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) is warning that it is being hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic and that it will soon exhaust its funding and might be unable to meet its payroll without significant help from Congress -- as the number of applications from immigrants dries up.

“Given the unprecedented nature of the global pandemic, there is no historical data that can be used to project the scope and duration of COVID-19’s impact on USCIS’ revenue,” said the email to staff by Deputy Director for Policy Joseph Edlow, a copy of which was obtained by Fox News.

“USCIS will exhaust its funding this summer, and without congressional intervention, we risk not being able to make payroll and will have to take drastic actions to keep the agency afloat,” he said.

USCIS offices closed in March as part of the effort to stop the spread of the coronavirus, suspending in-person services at field offices and asylum offices. President Trump has also placed significant restrictions on green cards for those already in the country -- which are usually handled by USCIS.

US IMMIGRATION OFFICES CLOSE UNTIL APRIL OVER CORONAVIRUS FEARS

Unlike other government agencies, USCIS is a fee-based agency, meaning it is primarily funded by the money coming from fees that immigrants pay to have their applications processed. But Edlow said that since the declaration of a national emergency, application and petition receipts “dropped to half their previous levels and with them, agency revenue that keeps our doors open.”

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https://www.foxnews.com/politics/us-immigration-agency-payroll-congressional-help?fbclid=IwAR2C6JZHupLYe01D1SXO1sQIoobeV4MQyRzJ14RWnGdqEYFwopZEkxO9jI0

[thongho2910 17]

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U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the government agency that processes immigration applications, is set to run out of money this summer and will begin attaching a 10% surcharge to application fees, the agency confirmed.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/uscis-to-add-surcharge-to-immigration-applications-11589707800

[thongho2910 17]

 

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Since President Trump took office, the agency, for example, has bolstered resources devoted to fraud detection as well as added new requirements for in-person interviews for hundreds of thousands of employment- and marriage-based green card applicants.

 

 

It also has been returning large numbers of visa applications with “requests for further evidence” of eligibility, which adjudicators must then review again. Extensions for H-1B visas, issued to skilled workers already in the United States, are now reviewed from scratch, as if the person is a first-time applicant.

 

“This administration has made every single application much more expensive and time-consuming to adjudicate,” said Doug Rand, who worked on immigration policy in the Obama administration.

 

In fiscal year 2016, the agency had 15,828 positions, including full-time and contract workers. Three years later, that number had climbed to almost 18,866, a 19 percent increase.

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/17/us/immigration-agency-uscis-budget.html

[HRQX 4,145]

There's already a thread on this:

 

[thongho2910 17]

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Immigrant advocates balked at the justification, saying that the goal was to reduce the number of immigrants who become citizens before the 2020 presidential election and, more broadly, cut legal immigration by making fees prohibitive for low-income people.The fee assessed on petitions for naturalization would jump more than 60 percent, to $1,170 from $725, for most applicants. The government would also begin charging asylum seekers $50 for applications and $490 for work permits, which would make the United States one of just four countries to charge people for asylum.

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/17/us/immigration-agency-uscis-budget.html

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Closed in favor of existing thread.