This article was prepared with the assistance of ABIL, the Alliance of Business Immigration Lawyers, of which Loan Huynh, Fredrikson Immigration Department Chair, is a member.
According to reports, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) is expected to furlough more than two-thirds of its employees as of August 3, 2020, for at least a month and up to three months or more.
Agency revenues have dropped precipitously due to a combination of factors, including availability of its fee-based services during the COVID-19 pandemic and Trump administration decisions to severely curtail immigration. USCIS is expected to exhaust its funding in early August unless Congress passes a $1.2 billion emergency supplemental funding request USCIS submitted in mid-May, the agency said.
The furlough of approximately 13,400 USCIS employees is likely to have an enormous negative impact on the U.S. immigration system, effectively halting most adjudications.
