The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services Agency (USCIS), which processes all visa applications, grants citizenships and provides immigration benefits, is facing a major budget shortfall. They are asking for Congress to allot them 1.2 billion dollars in emergency funding. If Congress does not come through, more than 13,000 employees ... the equivalent of at least 2/3 of the agency’s workforce, will be furloughed. “It's going to slow everything to a crawl," said Ur Jaddou, director of DHS Watch and former USCIS chief counsel.

Unlike most other government agencies that are funded by our tax dollars, the USCIS is mostly funded by the fees it charges. As a fee-for-service agency, it relies on the fees it collects through green card and citizenship applications, as well as work and other petitions in order to function.

Is the USCIS’s budget crisis another result of the shutdown due to the COVID19 pandemic?

Only partially. Offices have been closed during the pandemic and services have been put on pause, so applications and their corresponding fees are not being processed.

But there is another significant reason: The new regulations that the Trump administration has implemented to curb legal immigration. As they have made immigration more and more restrictive in the past couple of years, fewer applications have come in, which has literally meant less money for the agency. For example, in the past couple of years, applications for family members of US citizens have gone down 29% and overall applications have gone down 10 percent. That translates into hundreds of millions of dollars for the agency. Another factor is that this administration is requiring a much stricter vetting process, which, of course, costs the agency revenue. So, how does this affect those who have submitted or are planning on submitting, and application to USCIS – be it for a green card, citizenship, work visa, asylum or any other petition:

If USCIS doesn’t receive the 1.2 billion for the next two years, expect processing times to be extremely slow due to the limited personnel.

One way or another, price-hikes on all applications or petition are in the works. If approved, for example the naturalization application cost would go from $725 to $1,170, and DACA renewal fees would increase from $495 to $765.

There is also an expected 10% surcharge to all applications during this season to pay back the 1.2 million dollars – or whatever amount – it receives.

If you are in the process of submitting your application, don’t delay. Now is the time to do it before fees go up, even if processing will be slow.

Now, more than ever, the wisest thing to do is to consult an experienced immigration lawyer to understand the process and know how you can expedite your application or petition as much as possible in these uncertain times.

Sources: https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/02/politics/uscis-mass-furloughs-pandemic/index.html https://world.wng.org/2020/06/immigration_budget_crisis_reflects_change_in_policy https://www.migrationpolicy.org/news/uscis-severe-budget-shortfall