Source: VICE
The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) is the federal agency that administers the nation’s immigration system. USCIS’s budget is largely made up of the fees immigrants pay to process their immigration applications. But due to the pandemic and the Trump administration temporarily canceling visa categories, there has been a 50% drop in receipts and fees. In response, USCIS is furloughing about 73% of its employees beginning on August 3rd, “a move that will effectively bring the immigration system grinding to a halt.”
Judge Dana Leigh Marks, president emerita of the National Association of Immigration Judges said, “There are individuals who are put in the removal proceedings who have a qualifying relative or other basis upon which they are able to regularize their status to become eligible to be granted permanent resident status… And yet the immigration courts cannot move forward in some of those situations without a USCIS decision on a preliminary application.”
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