USCIS Avoids Furlough of Almost 70% of the Agency Workforce
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services announced that the agency will avoid an administrative furlough of more than 13,000 employees, as a result of unprecedented spending cuts and a steady increase in daily incoming revenue.
The agency believes that it can maintain operations through the end of fiscal year 2020 which ends September 30, 2020. The spending cut measures will affect agency operations, including naturalizations, and other uscis related matters.
Society and stakeholders can expect significant backlogs and processing delays due to the budget cuts, and it is this attorney’s estimation that increased problems due to financial constraints will certainly occur.
USCIS has stated that without congressional help with funding throughout fiscal year 2021, which begins October 1st 2020, the agency will again face dire circumstances.
The aformentioned cost savings come through the descoping of federal contracts that assist USCIS adjudicators in processing and preparing case files as well as a myriad of other support activities.
Anticipated operational impacts include increased wait times for pending case inquiries with the USCIS Contact Center, longer case processing times, and increased adjudication time for aliens adjusting status or naturalizing. Naturalization ceremonies will continue but applicants should expect longer than previously expected wait times.