Introduction

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), processes applications and petitions for a broad range of immigration benefits and services.¹ USCIS is relatively distinct among federal agencies because it funds its operations largely from customer user-fee revenue. USCIS regularly assesses and revises its fee schedule, if necessary, through the regulatory process. Appropriations typically make up less than 5% of its budget.

Congress has sometimes provided USCIS with funding for specific projects (see the "Supplementary Appropriations" section), but more recently it appropriated funds to alleviate relatively sudden revenue shortfalls stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic. The shortfalls and events causing them may foreshadow future fiscal challenges for USCIS. When the agency was created in 2002, humanitarian-related operations—typically provided for no fee—represented less than 5% of the agency's operating expenses. In 2022, such operations represented almost 20% of operating expenses and reflected the impact of international events and the U.S. response, such as the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and the surge of migrants seeking asylum at the Southwest border.

USCIS maintains a carryover balance to help manage revenue and processing fluctuations, and it collects relatively substantial Premium Processing fees for applicants and petitioners who seek expedited processing. Although Premium Processing revenue constitutes a growing share of USCIS annual revenue, and USCIS's current carryover balance currently exceeds its minimum threshold, the agency continues to face the possibility that unexpected events and unanticipated surges in immigration benefit filings could destabilize its finances.

In January 2024, USCIS issued a final rule for a revised fee schedule, the first revision since December 2016.² In the rule, USCIS has implemented a new $600 Asylum Program Fee for sponsors of employment-based immigrants to help offset the expense of its increased asylum application caseload. The Asylum Program Fee represents not only an attempt to reduce fiscal shortfalls in the future, but also to assign agency costs of providing humanitarian relief to the USCIS clients deemed most able to pay for them.

This report briefly reviews USCIS's organizational structure and responsibilities.³ It then reviews its budgetary structure including its three primary user fee accounts, congressional appropriations, and carryover balance. The report then turns to policy issues for Congress, which include methods for establishing fee amounts, supplemental appropriations, USCIS's digitization efforts for a largely paper-based workflow, the agency's fraud prevention efforts, and its accountability to Congress. The report ends with concluding observations.

USCIS Structure and Responsibilities

The Homeland Security Act of 2002 (P.L. 107-296),⁴ abolished the former Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) and placed most INS functions under three new agencies as of March 1, 2003: USCIS, Customs and Border Protection (CBP), and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Structure

USCIS has about 285 offices around the world and employs roughly 20,000 employees and contractors.⁵ USCIS also operates 10 asylum offices and over 100 Application Support Centers that schedule appointments to collect information from immigration benefit petitioners and applicants. Seven USCIS Directorates process immigration benefits.⁶ Within these directorates, processing petitions and applications, the bulk of USCIS's workload, occurs at six Service Centers and 88 Field Offices in the United States, Puerto Rico, and Guam.⁷ USCIS also operates Application Support Centers that collect biometric data; Asylum Offices for asylum-related interviews and issues; the National Benefits Center for pre-adjudication, staging, and distribution of benefit applications to USCIS field offices; and the National Records Center that stores millions of immigration records and processes Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests and applications for genealogy information.⁸ Six USCIS Program Offices handle administrative functions.⁹

Responsibilities

Adjudicating Petitions, Applications, and Requests

In FY2023, USCIS received 10.4 million petitions and applications.¹⁰ This workload included 3.5 million applications for work authorization documents,¹¹ 2.0 million petitions related to lawful permanent resident (LPR) status (i.e., green card),¹² and about 825,000 naturalization (citizenship) applications.¹³ USCIS also adjudicates requests for humanitarian-related immigration relief, including applications from crime victims,¹⁴ children seeking status as special immigrant juveniles,¹⁵ beneficiaries of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program,¹⁶ and those eligible for temporary protected status (TPS).¹⁷ Personnel in USCIS's Refugee, Asylum, and International Operations Directorate interview and screen certain asylum applicants,¹⁸ adjudicate refugee applications, and conduct background and record checks for some immigrant petitions abroad.¹⁹

USCIS interacts with applicants and petitioners in two ways: through its website, USCIS Contact Center, and through in-person appointments.²⁰ USCIS also informs the public of its services via public engagements and stakeholder outreach in multiple languages and settings.²¹

Fraud Detection and National Security

USCIS's Office of Fraud Detection and National Security (FDNS) works to strengthen the integrity of the immigration system by removing systemic vulnerabilities, expanding partnerships with law enforcement and intelligence organizations, and determining whether individuals filing for immigration benefits pose national security or public safety threats. FDNS manages USCIS screening policy and procedures across all agency directorates and program offices. Adjudicators must confirm that petitioners and applicants are eligible for the benefit they seek or reject them if they do not meet the relevant requirements.²²

Employment Eligibility Verification

USCIS administers the Employment Eligibility Verification (E-Verify) program, which is available to employers to ensure their employees are allowed to work lawfully in the United States.²³ The system compares information entered by an employer from an employee's USCIS Form I-9, Employment Eligibility Verification, to DHS and Social Security Administration databases.²⁴ Unlike most other agency functions, the E-Verify program is funded by annual congressional appropriations.

Immigration Status Verification

USCIS operates the Systematic Alien²⁵ Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) program, which provides online immigration status verification to federal, state, and local benefits-granting agencies and licensing bureaus (e.g., departments of motor vehicles, licensing boards). Such agencies use this information to help determine applicants' eligibility for their benefits and licenses.²⁶ SAVE is funded by direct user fees, immigrant benefit fee revenue, and Premium Processing fees.

Civic Integration

USCIS's Office of Citizenship has a broad goal of facilitating immigrant civic participation and integration into American society. It operates the Citizenship and Integration Grant program, which funds immigrant-serving organizations that offer citizenship-related education programs (e.g., English, U.S. history, civics) and naturalization application services.²⁷ Like the E-Verify program, the Citizenship and Integration Grant program is funded by annual congressional appropriations.

USCIS Funding

USCIS funds its operations largely from customer user-fee revenue. The agency (and its predecessor) has had the legal authority to establish and revise user fees and use them for their operations since at least the passage of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 (INA; P.L. 82-414, §281).²⁸

The most recent USCIS final budget authority figures (Table 1) show that congressional appropriations in FY2024 ($281 million) comprised 4.5% of the agency's total budget authority ($6.3 billion). Included in the latter total are authorized collections from four fee accounts that either fund specific USCIS functions or are disbursed to other federal agencies. All four fee accounts are described below.

USCIS Fee Accounts

To fund most of its operations, USCIS relies on four fee accounts established under different legislative authorities:

• the Immigration Examinations Fee Account (IEFA);
• the H-1B Nonimmigrant Petitioner Fee Account;
• the Fraud Prevention and Detection Fee Account; and
• the EB-5 Integrity Fund.

Immigration Examinations Fee Account (IEFA)

In 1988, Congress created the IEFA, transforming the budgetary structure of the former INS by making most funding for its immigration services functions no longer subject to annual congressional approval.²⁹ The INA provides that funds deposited in the IEFA remain available until expended "for expenses in providing immigration adjudication and naturalization services and the collection, safeguarding and accounting for fees deposited in and funds reimbursed from the 'Immigration Examinations Fee Account.'"³⁰ This language serves as a permanent appropriation, making IEFA funds available without reliance on the annual appropriations process.

The INA requires user fees to be set at a level ensuring full recovery of adjudication and naturalization service costs, including the costs of services to foreign nationals who are not charged fees (e.g., asylum applicants).³¹ User fees can also be set at levels to cover administrative costs. As such, USCIS controls the authority to set user fee levels according to its budgetary needs (see the "Fee Levels and Public Policy" section and "Executive Action and Accountability to Congress" section). ³²

In addition to its standard fees for immigration benefits, USCIS collects Premium Processing fees from applicants and petitioners seeking expedited (within 15 business days) processing. Established by statute in 2000 (P.L. 106-553, Appendix B, Title I, §112)³³ and enacted the following year, Premium Processing was originally limited to certain employment-based petitions and applications.³⁴ Its revenue was intended solely to support the cost of the premium processing and help pay for backlog reduction.³⁵ In 2021, Congress expanded USCIS's authority to accept Premium Processing fees for other immigration benefits and to use the revenue for other purposes (see the "Supplementary Appropriations" section).³⁶ Premium Processing revenue now supports the cost of Premium Processing requests, information technology and other improvements to adjudication-related infrastructure, lockbox and overhead costs, and other immigration and naturalization processing costs.³⁷

In FY2022, USCIS received 490,588 Premium Processing service requests, out of 8,629,636 total requests for immigration benefits and services.³⁸ Premium Processing requests thus accompanied 5.7% of all forms submitted to USCIS in FY2022. In the same year, Premium Processing revenue represented 25.7% of total IEFA revenue.³⁹ Six years earlier, in FY2016, the percentages were 4.0% and 13.6%, respectively.⁴⁰ Thus, while Premium Processing requests increased by 43% over this period, Premium Processing revenue increased by 88%.

H-1B Nonimmigrant Petitioner Fee Account

In 1998, Congress passed the American Competitiveness and Workforce Improvement Act (ACWIA),⁴¹ which, among other provisions, temporarily increased the annual limit of individuals receiving H-1B nonimmigrant status.⁴² To compensate for this increase and reduce employer reliance on highly skilled nonimmigrant workers, the act established the H-1B Nonimmigrant Petitioner Fee Account to provide training and education for American workers through programs administered by the Department of Labor (DOL) and the National Science Foundation (NSF). This provision thereby created an affirmative role for U.S. employers to assist U.S. workers in the context of increased authorization of temporary workers. DOL receives 55% of this account's total revenues, NSF receives 40%, and USCIS receives the remaining 5%.⁴³ In FY2023, USCIS received roughly $20 million from the account, or 0.4% of its budget.⁴⁴

The statutorily established H-1B Nonimmigrant Petitioner fee is currently $1,500 for employers participating in the H-1B program with more than 25 full-time equivalent employees and $750 otherwise.⁴⁵ Unless explicitly exempt, employers must pay an ACWIA fee for each H-1B worker sponsored. Because the level of the fee is specifically set in statute, changing it would require enactment of legislation.

Fraud Prevention and Detection Fee Account

In 2004, Congress passed the L-1 Visa and H-1B Visa Reform Act of 2004,⁴⁶ which established the Fraud Prevention and Detection Account. This account receives funds for fraud detection and prevention activities from a $500 fee that must be paid by an employer either submitting an initial H-1B, H-2B, or L nonimmigrant petition or seeking within those classifications to change a worker's employer.⁴⁷ By statute, the Fraud Detection and Prevention Account fee revenue is allocated equally among DHS, DOL, and the Department of State (DOS) for fraud detection and prevention activities. As with the H-1B Nonimmigrant Petitioner fee, the Fraud Prevention and Detection fee is established by statute, and USCIS has no authority to adjust it. In FY2023, USCIS's share of fee revenue from this account was about $54 million, or 1.0% of its total budget.⁴⁸

EB-5 Integrity Fund

In 1990, Congress created the EB-5 Immigrant Investor program to promote U.S. economic growth through foreign capital investment and domestic job creation.⁴⁹ The EB-5 immigrant category is the fifth of five immigrant categories within the employment-based immigrant system.⁵⁰ It provides LPR status to up to 10,000 foreign nationals and their family members who invest in a new commercial enterprise in the United States that generates specified employment levels according to the type of investment.⁵¹

In 2022, Congress passed the EB-5 Reform and Integrity Act of 2022, which established the EB-5 Integrity Fund.⁵² Collected revenues from the related fees are used by DHS to conduct investigations to ensure that monies invested in the program were obtained lawfully; detect and investigate fraud and other crimes; determine whether EB-5 investments and investors are complying with U.S. immigration laws; conduct regular audits and site visits; and for other purposes that DHS deems necessary.⁵³

Annual Appropriations

Historically, appropriations have comprised a relatively small share of USCIS's budget (Figure 1) and typically fund E-Verify and the Citizenship and Integration Grant program described above. In some years, Congress has supplemented its usual appropriations for USCIS with additional funding to address specific objectives. For example, Congress appropriated $25.3 million in FY2009 to support a multiyear effort to modernize USCIS business processes and supporting systems.⁵⁴ More recently, it appropriated money to reduce USCIS processing backlogs that arose due to the COVID-19 pandemic (see the "Supplementary Appropriations" section).

Figure 1. USCIS Budget by Fee Revenue and Appropriations, FY2006-FY2024

Source: FY2006: Office of Management and Budget, FY2006 Budget Appendix, Department of Homeland Security, p. 448; FY2007-FY2023: DHS Congressional Budget Justification, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, multiple years; FY2024: Further Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2024 (H.R. 2882), Explanatory Statement, Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, Final Bill amounts, Congressional Record, March 22, 2024, pp. H1873-H1874. Notes: FY2024 represents final budget authority. Amounts for all other years are actual. Fee revenue includes amounts for the IEFA, the H-1B Nonimmigrant Petitioner Account, the Fraud Prevention and Detection Account, and starting in FY2023, the EB-5 Integrity Fund.

Year-End Carryover Balance

USCIS maintains a cash reserve or carryover balance from one fiscal year to the next that represents accumulated unobligated and unexpended user-fee revenue. According to USCIS, "IEFA requires a positive carryover balance to ensure that sufficient funds are available to maintain operations at the start of each new fiscal year until it collects and deposits current year fee revenue."⁵⁵ The balance helps the agency manage revenue fluctuations and unanticipated demands on its processing operations.⁵⁶ Following DHS financial management guidelines, USCIS has established a minimum carryover target balance equal to planned first quarter spending.⁵⁷

Figure 2 shows that the total carryover balance has increased from $416 million in FY2003 to $2.04 billion in FY2022. At the start of FY2024, the balance was projected at $2.2 billion.⁵⁸ The carryover balance consists of fees associated with USCIS's non-Premium Processing workload and its Premium Processing workload. The growing percentage of the latter underscores how Premium Processing revenue increasingly supports USCIS fiscal stability.

Figure 2. USCIS Carryover Balance, by Type, FY2003-FY2022

Source: Unpublished data provided to CRS by USCIS Office of Legislative Affairs, November 27, 2023. Notes: Prior to FY2007, all Premium Processing revenue was effectively used during the fiscal year it was received. USCIS was authorized to expand the use of Premium Processing revenue in the Emergency Stopgap USCIS Stabilization Act (H.R. 8089, 117th Congress). Carryover balances exclude adjustments for sequestration.

Despite the positive and recently increasing carryover balance trendline shown in Figure 2, USCIS signaled to Congress in FY2023 that it projected forthcoming negative carryover balances (non-premium) for that fiscal year if its proposed 2023 fee rule could not be enacted (see the "Fee Levels and Public Policy" section).⁵⁹

Issues for Congress

Fee Levels and Public Policy

In January 2024, USCIS published a final rule, effective April 1, 2024, that increased many of its fees for the first time since December 2016.⁶⁰ USCIS maintains that the increases are required to recover the full cost of providing adjudication and naturalization services at an adequate level, and that absent this revision, the agency would incur a deficit of $1.1 billion.⁶¹ USCIS similarly had revised its fee schedule in 2002,⁶² 2004,⁶³ 2005,⁶⁴ 2007,⁶⁵ 2010,⁶⁶ and 2016.⁶⁷ (See Table A-1 for a comparison of most USCIS fees in 2005, 2007, 2010, 2016, and 2024). Although not enacted, the Trump Administration issued a final rule adjusting the fee schedule in 2020 that was later enjoined by a federal court.⁶⁸ The rule was subsequently withdrawn by the Biden Administration in 2021.⁶⁹ In March 2023, DHS published another proposed rule to revise its fee schedule that became the 2024 final rule.⁷⁰

USCIS revises most fees through regulation. Like other federal agencies that charge user fees, USCIS must regularly assess and revise its fee schedule.⁷¹ Proposed rules to do so typically elicit many public concerns about the increasing cost of immigration benefits. USCIS has sometimes quantified the overall change in the fee schedule using an overall weighted average percentage.⁷² In the 2007 final rule, USCIS reported that fees had increased by 66% compared to the 2005 fee schedule.⁷³ In its 2010 final rule, the agency reported an increase of 10% over its 2007 schedule.⁷⁴ In 2016, USCIS reported an increase of 21% over the 2010 fee schedule,⁷⁵ and the 2020 final rule reported a 20% increase over 2016.⁷⁶ Although the 2023 proposed rule notice for the most recent revision specified an overall weighted average increase of 40% over the 2016 schedule, the 2024 final rule notice, which reflected fee reductions from the 2023 proposed rule, did not quantify the ultimate overall change. According to USCIS, fee increases in the final rule generally reflect an upper limit of 26%, equivalent to the increase in the Consumer Price Index since 2016, the year of the previous fee schedule. The fee increases for many benefits fall below 26%.⁷⁷

Considerations for setting fees can be broad. In a 2010 assessment, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) outlined four policy considerations for setting fee levels: equity (everyone pays their fair share), efficiency (the economic value that beneficiaries place on the service), revenue adequacy (the extent to which fee collections cover the intended share of costs), and administrative burden (the full cost of fee administration).⁷⁸

By contrast, in its 2024 proposed rule issuance, USCIS distinguished between two primary policy considerations: a beneficiary pays principle (the beneficiaries of a service pay for its cost) and an ability-to-pay principle (those more capable of bearing the burden of fees pay more for the service than those with less ability to pay).⁷⁹ These two perspectives reflect a debate over who should pay for immigration services received by fee-exempt beneficiaries. For example, the decision to exempt asylum seekers from paying an application fee means that USCIS must then recover the cost of processing those applications through higher fees for other immigration benefits. Similarly, USCIS's $50 fee for registrants of TPS, established by statute in 1990, cannot be revised through regulation to reflect decades of increasing processing costs. Those costs must then be recovered from other user fees.⁸⁰

In its 2023 proposed rule, USCIS estimated that 1 million of the 8 million forms it received in FY2022 (about 12.5% of total processing volume) had no fee, were fee-exempt, or were fee-waived.⁸¹ According to USCIS, humanitarian-related processing costs, which are not fully covered by related user fees, represented roughly 5% of USCIS's budget when the agency was created in 2002. In 2022, it represented almost 20% of USCIS's budget.⁸² Consequently, while some of USCIS's recent financial shortfall can be attributed to temporary disruptions caused by COVID, financial challenges for the agency increasingly stem from growing numbers of asylum seekers and others seeking humanitarian relief.⁸³

The Asylum Program fee demonstrates how USCIS applied the ability-to-pay principle in its 2024 final fee schedule. The fee—$600 for businesses with more than 25 employees, $300 for all other businesses, and no fee for nonprofit organizations—is incurred by employers filing the I-129 Petition for Nonimmigrant Worker and I-140 Immigrant Petition for Alien Worker. USCIS notes that this fee allows fees for other immigration benefits to be lower than if the asylum program costs were spread evenly among all fee payers.⁸⁴

USCIS may also revise eligibility criteria for fee waivers.⁸⁵ USCIS recently estimated that for FY2020, $229.4 million in fee waivers were granted, which represented 5.9% of actual FY2020 IEFA revenue.⁸⁶ Under current regulations, applicants may receive a fee waiver if they can clearly demonstrate an inability to pay.⁸⁷ While USCIS accepts fee waiver applications for about 25 different applications and petitions,⁸⁸ it will not authorize fee waivers in cases where "a waiver is inconsistent with the benefit requested, which may require establishing financial stability."⁸⁹

Advocates for lower USCIS fees argue that higher fees impose hardship disproportionately on those seeking immigration services and benefits, including small businesses.⁹⁰ Some have argued, for example, that higher fees may force some families to seek services and benefits incrementally rather than as a family unit, causing some members to forgo the application process entirely.⁹¹ Others have asserted that current fees required to submit a naturalization application discourage eligible low-income immigrants from naturalizing.⁹² Similar arguments have been made in response to the 2023 proposed and 2024 final fee schedule rules.⁹³

Proponents of fee increases have argued that immigration fees must reflect the full cost of delivering immigration services. Such arguments form the core of USCIS's response to comments opposing fee increases in the 2023 proposed and 2024 final fee schedule rules. Some have objected to any fee structure that would require "overtaxed and overstretched Americans" to support through their tax dollars an agency they view as primarily benefiting immigrants.⁹⁴

Humanitarian Processing

In the past three years, historically high numbers of migrants have arrived at the Southwest border.⁹⁵ Many seek humanitarian relief and can potentially benefit from major immigration programs such as asylum, humanitarian parole, and TPS.

Although USCIS is not directly responsible for border security, it is involved with the asylum screening process for certain migrant arrivals at the border. Most migrants who request asylum are placed into formal removal proceedings and scheduled for a hearing with an immigration judge in the Department of Justice's (DOJ's) Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR).⁹⁶ Until recently, only immigration judges could adjudicate claims for humanitarian relief for individuals in removal proceedings. As a result, the recent increase of migrant arrivals at the Southwest border has contributed substantially to a sizable preexisting immigration courts backlog, which at the end of 2023 exceeded three million cases.⁹⁷

In May 2022, in response to the growing EOIR backlog, the Biden Administration initiated an Asylum Officer Rule intended to reduce long waiting periods for asylum claims adjudication through EOIR immigration courts. The rule authorized USCIS asylum officers to not only provide the initial credible fear interviews but also adjudicate asylum cases through a new Asylum Merits Interview (AMI).⁹⁸ The rule also reduced asylum seekers' waiting time before being allowed to apply for work authorization.⁹⁹ The rule applies prospectively and only to adults and families in expedited removal proceedings who indicate an intent to apply for asylum or express a fear of persecution, torture, or other harm if they return to their home country.¹⁰⁰ Nevertheless, the rule is expected to be implemented gradually, and most individuals who receive positive credible fear determinations will continue to be referred to EOIR for formal removal proceedings.¹⁰¹

In October 2022, the Biden Administration established a humanitarian parole process for nationals from Venezuela, a country facing considerable political turmoil and mass out-migration.¹⁰² In January 2023, DHS expanded the process to nationals of Cuba, Haiti, and Nicaragua.¹⁰³ The CHNV processes (for nationals of Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela) allow qualifying nationals and their immediate family members to come to the United States temporarily for up to two years and apply for employment authorization upon arrival. As of November 2023, USCIS had processed 312,430 CHNV beneficiaries.¹⁰⁴

DHS has also designated more countries for TPS in recent years. In November 2018, for example, 417,341 individuals from 10 countries were TPS beneficiaries.¹⁰⁵ Five years later, as of September 2023, those figures had increased to 697,530 individuals from 16 countries.¹⁰⁶ The 2023 figure included 239,175 nationals just from Venezuela.¹⁰⁷ In September 2023, DHS extended and redesignated Venezuela for TPS, thereby increasing the number of TPS-eligible Venezuelan nationals to an estimated 472,000 individuals.¹⁰⁸

As discussed above, applications for most humanitarian immigration benefits such as asylum, humanitarian parole, and TPS generate either no fee revenue or revenue insufficient to cover current processing costs. The sizable increase in the number of persons seeking humanitarian benefits requires that USCIS devote more personnel to process these benefit applications, along with related employment and travel authorization applications.

Supplementary Appropriations

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, USCIS had not received supplementary appropriations from Congress apart from those described in the "Annual Appropriations" section.¹⁰⁹ The agency had managed to operate with a sufficiently large carryover balance to cover fluctuations in its ongoing expenses.¹¹⁰

The COVID-19 pandemic depressed international travel, which reduced the demand for U.S. visas and lowered USCIS fee revenue.¹¹¹ In March 2020, the Trump Administration imposed immigration restrictions that also reduced USCIS fee revenue.¹¹² The decreased demand for U.S. visas as a result of the pandemic led USCIS to consume much of its carryover reserve.

In May 2020, USCIS notified Congress of an anticipated decline in petition and application receipts and an expected budget shortfall. The agency requested $1.2 billion to support operations until the end of FY2020 and initiated a hiring freeze and issued furlough notices to 70% of its employees.¹¹³ The hiring freeze lasted from May 2020 through April 2021 and precipitated a decline in the number of USCIS adjudicators and contract support staff who could not be replaced when they left the agency. When revised budget estimates indicated that the agency had sufficient funding, USCIS rescinded the furlough notices.¹¹⁴ The agency ended the fiscal year with a $582 million surplus.¹¹⁵

In response to the threat to USCIS's fiscal condition, Congress passed the Emergency Stopgap USCIS Stabilization Act,¹¹⁶ which gave USCIS authority to bolster its finances by expanding Premium Processing. Previously, Premium Processing had been limited to USCIS Form I-129 for nonimmigrant workers and USCIS Form I-140 for immigrant workers. The act allowed USCIS to make it available for any immigration benefit considered appropriate. The act also expanded the agency's authority to use Premium Processing funds not only for infrastructure improvements but also to cover operating expenses.

USCIS's financial position subsequently improved. By the start of FY2022, the agency had $1.5 billion in cash reserves, and by the start of FY2023, over $2 billion (Figure 2). For FY2022, DHS requested $345 million to address USCIS's processing backlog and to support refugee processing, which had expanded under the Biden Administration. Congress appropriated $275 million for these purposes.¹¹⁷ Congress also appropriated $193 million to support the agency's efforts with Operation Allies Welcome.¹¹⁸ For FY2023, the Biden Administration requested an additional $375 million for USCIS to operationalize Executive Order 14010 related to migration management and orderly asylum processing.¹¹⁹ Congress responded by appropriating $133.4 million to the agency.¹²⁰

In its 2025 budget request, USCIS asked Congress for a total appropriation of $265.2 million, comprised of $110.2 million to fund the E-Verify program, $10 million for citizenship and integration grants, and an additional $145 million for application processing for its refugee, asylum, and international operations.¹²¹

Recent Processing Backlogs

From FY2013 to FY2023, the volume of immigration forms received by USCIS increased 52%, from 6.9 million to 10.5 million (Table B-1). During the same period, the number of pending forms that USCIS had not yet adjudicated tripled, from 3.0 million to 9.0 million (Figure 3). In February 2024, USCIS reported that it had reduced its overall backlogs (which it describes as "cases outside of processing times") during FY2023 by 15%. The agency reported a record 10.9 million received filings, and 10.0 million filing completions in FY2023, among other accomplishments.¹²²

Figure 3. USCIS Forms Received, Approved, Denied, and Pending at Year End, FY2013-FY2023

Source: USCIS, Number of Service-Wide Forms by Fiscal Year to Date, Quarter, and Form Status, multiple years.

To facilitate planning for its continually fluctuating annual workload, USCIS regularly projects total application workload volume, along with associated user fees to be collected (based on which applicants pay fees).¹²³ USCIS makes such projections by using modeling techniques and anticipating filing trends and events that may influence the volume of applications. Nevertheless, the agency's workload is influenced by factors such as shifts in U.S. immigration policy, the economy, and international political events, all of which affect the extent to which foreign nationals apply for immigration benefits.¹²⁴

Increases in USCIS's pending caseload over the past five years have been attributed largely to five major factors:

• 1. In 2018, the Trump Administration instituted policies intended to provide greater security and reduce the incidence of immigration fraud. These requirements included additional questions on applications and petitions that sometimes significantly exceeded those found on the original forms; expanded interview requirements in response to security-related executive orders; and increasing the number of Requests for Evidence in response to insufficient information obtained initially from forms and interviews.¹²⁵ These policies extended the time USCIS required to adjudicate certain petitions.¹²⁶
• 2. In May 2020, USCIS implemented a hiring freeze that created sizable staffing shortages and hindered its adjudicatory capacity following employee departures and retirements.¹²⁷
• 3. The COVID-19 pandemic hindered immigration benefit processing. USCIS and DOS both took public health precautions on behalf of their employees that restricted how many petitioners and applicants could acquire visas abroad or be processed for immigration benefits in the United States. These precautions included closing all in-person work for three months, and then limiting in-person visa interviews to maintain health protocols.¹²⁸
• 4. USCIS was unable to process all of the statutorily permitted family-based immigrant petitions in FY2021 and FY2022, resulting in hundreds of thousands of unused family-sponsored preference immigrant visas. By statute, these immigrant visa numbers "fall across" to employment-based immigrants in the following fiscal year. Capitalizing on the opportunity, created by the additional employment-based visas, to reduce the employment-based immigrant backlog, USCIS devoted a portion of its limited resources to process 135,000 backlogged employment-based immigrant petitions and ensure that such visas were not wasted before the end of the fiscal year.¹²⁹ This delayed the processing of other immigration benefits.
• 5. Unanticipated international events forced USCIS to shift some personnel away from conventional applications and petitions. These events included unprecedented numbers of asylum seekers arriving at the Southwest border, which created a corresponding high demand for humanitarian relief. The U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and the Russian invasion of Ukraine required USCIS to prioritize humanitarian parole, asylum applications, and work authorization applications through the Operation Allies Welcome and Uniting for Ukraine initiatives, respectively. The Biden Administration also created a special parole process for nationals from Venezuela that it subsequently expanded to nationals from Cuba, Haiti, and Nicaragua.¹³⁰ Finally, as noted earlier, DHS designated more countries for TPS, thereby increasing the number of personnel that USCIS had to devote to process initial and renewal TPS applications along with related work and travel authorization applications.¹³¹

To ease backlogs and processing burdens, USCIS has recently taken a number of actions. It has extended the validity periods for some of its applications, such as for Employment Authorization Documents (EADs) to reduce the need to process renewals.¹³² For other applications, it has expedited renewals. In addition, the agency has established new internal metrics for certain petitions and applications in order to guide backlog reduction efforts and gauge agency progress on reducing case processing times.¹³³

USCIS has also introduced new procedures, such as video interviews for certain naturalization, asylum, and refugee cases. The agency has introduced greater flexibility for naturalization oath ceremonies to accommodate COVID-related health concerns related to large group events and the need for social distancing; reused certain biometrics data in cases involving the same individual; and expanded remote work for its personnel, particularly during office closures.¹³⁴ To reduce collecting and verifying unnecessary information, USCIS has simplified several common forms, including the applications for employment authorization (Form I-765), adjustment of status (Form I-485), and naturalization (Form N-400).¹³⁵

Legislative proposals addressing USCIS processing backlogs typically involve supplemental appropriations. For example, the Assisting Seekers in Pursuit of Integration and Rapid Employment (ASPIRE) Act (H.R. 4309/ S. 2175) in the 118^th Congress would appropriate $2 billion to the agency, of which at least 75% would need to be spent to hire personnel.

Digitization and Customer Service

USCIS continues to process many benefits using paper-based forms, an operating system long considered outmoded, inefficient, and costly.¹³⁶ As of August 2022, paper filings accounted for four-fifths (81%) of all application and petition receipt volume.¹³⁷ According to DHS's Inspector General, the lack of progress in digitizing USCIS forms has impeded USCIS from operating more cost-effectively, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic.¹³⁸

Paper files impose a considerable storage burden to USCIS. The agency was storing roughly 80 million paper A-Files (case files for each immigration benefit request) in more than 150 locations as of August 2022.¹³⁹ USCIS also held 2.6 million paper files that were pending adjudication.¹⁴⁰ Although inefficient to store and move, USCIS maintains that DOJ continues to mandate them over concerns that any litigation in EOIR's immigration courts may require original documents.¹⁴¹

In addition, key administrative functions related to petitions and applications, such as requests for evidence, form receipt notices, and form approval notices, are still sent by USCIS through U.S. Postal Service mail. This imposes personnel and mailing costs on the agency, additional waiting times for petitioners and applicants, and uncertainty over lost mail. Some observers propose incorporating these three basic administrative functions into applicants' and petitioners' online accounts that are already used to monitor cases.¹⁴²

USCIS's efforts to transition from a paper-based system to an online customer account system began in 2007,¹⁴³ although concerted efforts to improve the agency's efficiency through greater IT use had occurred earlier.¹⁴⁴ In 2012, USCIS launched its Electric Immigration System (ELIS) to serve as a public-facing platform allowing customers to submit forms online and agency personnel to adjudicate benefits electronically.¹⁴⁵ By 2017, the agency had changed its strategy, using ELIS solely for internal use as a platform to access different legacy IT systems for information and adjudication.¹⁴⁶

In FY2018, USCIS began accepting large numbers of benefit filings online through myUSCIS, the agency's current online customer platform.¹⁴⁷ As of the start of FY2022, USCIS reported more than 8 million persons had created unique myUSCIS accounts.¹⁴⁸ USCIS recently reported that it processed roughly 1.2 million online filings in FY2020, nearly double the figure for FY2018.¹⁴⁹ USCIS can now accept electronic filing for 17 of its forms, including the following:

• N-400, Application for Naturalization
• I-90, Application to Replace Permanent Resident Card
• I-130, Petition for Alien Relative
• I-539, Application to Extend/Change Nonimmigrant Status
• I-589 Application for Asylum and Withholding of Removal
• I-765 Application for Employment Authorization
• I-821 Application for Temporary Protected Status
• I-821D Consideration of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA)¹⁵⁰

In FY2021, USCIS reported that it possessed the capacity to process over half of its workload via "end-to-end electronic processing," the desired end state for operational efficiency (Table 2).¹⁵¹ USCIS maintains a goal of offering end-to-end online filing and processing for all immigration forms.¹⁵² The agency also seeks to selectively digitize a portion of its collection of 80 million paper A-files representing completed cases that can be largely archived. According to USCIS, meeting these goals will require a continued effort toward digitization, including dedicated funding.¹⁵³ Pressures to fulfill other mandates could jeopardize these plans.¹⁵⁴

In March 2023, USCIS established its first virtual service center to handle applications with some of the longest processing backlogs.¹⁵⁵ These include U visa applications (Form I-918); petitions for status under the Violence Against Women Act (Form I-360); provisional waivers of the "unlawful presence" bar for green card petitioners (Form I-601A); and family reunification petitions for the families of asylum grantees (Form I-730). With an initial staffing of 150 personnel, USCIS expects the center to be fully operational by the fall of 2024.¹⁵⁶

USCIS Fraud Detection and Admissibility

When adjudicating petitions and applications, USCIS must not only confirm that foreign nationals are eligible for the immigration benefits sought but also prevent immigration fraud and public safety threats.¹⁵⁷ USCIS has broad authority to conduct background, identity, and security checks on individuals seeking immigration benefits.¹⁵⁸ Although its Office of Fraud Detection and National Security (FDNS) staff work with all USCIS components, most of their work centers on the adjudicative directorates of Field Operations; Service Center Operations; and Refugee, Asylum and International Operations.¹⁵⁹

Immigration fraud has two facets. Document fraud involves counterfeiting, selling, and/or using identity documents, alien registration documents and stamps, employment authorizations, passports, visas, and other documents for the purpose of evading immigration laws.¹⁶⁰ Benefit and qualification fraud encompasses the willful misrepresentation of material facts to qualify for immigration benefits in the absence of lawful eligibility for those benefits. Examples of benefit fraud include entering into a sham marriage in order to claim to be the spouse of a U.S. citizen, omitting a disqualifying criminal conviction from a petition in order to become an LPR, or falsely claiming to have been living in the United States continuously in order to meet naturalization residence requirements. Immigration fraud can be seen as a continuum of overlapping events or offenses, because people may commit document fraud in order to commit benefit fraud.

In 2004, USCIS established the FDNS Directorate in order to identify systemic fraud in the immigration process, detect national security and public safety threats from foreign nationals, and form partnerships with law enforcement entities.¹⁶¹ The FDNS Directorate operates the FDNS Data System (FDNS-DS), which records and tracks its investigative activity. FDNS-DS also "manages immigration inquiries, investigative referrals, law enforcement requests, and case determinations involving benefit fraud, criminal activity, public safety, and national security concerns."¹⁶²

In FY2023, the FDNS budget of $264 million represented 4.7% of the IEFA enacted budget of $5.6 billion.¹⁶³ In that year, USCIS processed 160,400 fraud detection referrals, or 1.6% of USCIS's form volume (10.0 million) processed that year.¹⁶⁴ Of those referrals, 8.5% involved alleged national security or public safety cases, and 22.2% involved alleged fraud leads or cases.¹⁶⁵

USCIS refers suspected benefit fraud cases to ICE as requests for investigations and suspends the adjudication of benefits for those cases while they are with ICE. USCIS allows ICE up to 60 days to decide if a criminal investigation is warranted. If ICE does not pursue a criminal investigation within 60 days, USCIS initiates an administrative review process to determine if the benefit should be denied and the alien should be placed in removal proceedings.

In 2009, USCIS initiated the Administrative Site Visit and Verification Program as an additional way to verify information from certain visa petitions, including special immigrant religious workers petitions, H-1B nonimmigrant temporary visas, L-1 nonimmigrant intracompany transferee executive or manager visas, and EB-5 immigrant investor program visas.¹⁶⁶ As part of this effort, FDNS officials conduct compliance reviews, which can involve unannounced site visits, information collection, and interviews at places of employment.¹⁶⁷ USCIS notes that participation by petitioners and beneficiaries is voluntary but strongly encouraged. Some observers have criticized this program, arguing that the Homeland Security Act of 2002 that created USCIS expressly prohibits the agency from engaging in immigration-related investigation and enforcement activities.¹⁶⁸

During the Trump Administration, USCIS increased its vetting of immigration benefits to detect fraud. Critics of this policy contended that the increased vetting substantially increased FDNS spending and contributed to the agency's caseload backlog but did not alter approval rates for the scrutinized benefits.¹⁶⁹ Proponents contend that such increased vetting is worth the administrative slowdown because it reduces the likelihood of significant public safety threats.¹⁷⁰

USCIS fraud prevention activities have received attention from GAO. In 2019, it suggested improvements to detecting fraud in the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) self-petitioner program.¹⁷¹ In 2022, GAO issued an assessment of FDNS activities from FY2016 through FY2021.¹⁷² It noted that COVID-19 pandemic-related budget constraints and personnel challenges (see the "Recent Processing Backlogs" section) resulted in declining numbers of immigration benefit fraud cases (where fraud is detected and referred internally for further investigation) and reduced agency capacity to conduct residential site visits, a critical element for collecting fraud-related evidence. Case completion times doubled over this period for similar reasons. GAO recommendations emphasized staff planning, data entry guidance, regular assessments, and the need for risk-based evaluations of FDNS effectiveness.

Executive Action and Accountability to Congress

USCIS's budgetary structure and its relative independence from congressional control has received congressional attention within the past decade. In November 2014, President Obama issued an executive action¹⁷³ that, among other provisions, expanded the 2012 DACA program.¹⁷⁴ Some in Congress opposed these deferred action programs; however, they possessed few options for halting them using the annual appropriations process. The executive action highlighted challenges Congress faces if it wishes to exert control over an agency whose funding is mostly independent of the annual appropriations process. If Congress wanted to alter existing statutory provisions governing the collection of user fees in the Immigration Examinations Fee Account, the availability of user fees for expenditure, or the prohibition of user fees for certain purposes, it would need to enact legislation.¹⁷⁵

Concluding Observations

Since its creation in 2002, USCIS has relied almost entirely on user fee revenue for its operations. In most years, Congress has appropriated funds only for USCIS's E-Verify and Citizenship Grants programs, and provided additional funding in some years for special projects and, more recently, alleviating processing backlogs.

As noted above, while some observers laud the application of user fees that effectively transfer the cost of running USCIS from U.S. taxpayers to recipients of immigration benefits, others have voiced concerns over the limitations on congressional oversight it reflects. Some contend that such budget independence also makes the agency less responsive to the need for affordable user fees and timely and effective customer service.

While user fees provide steady revenue funding for ongoing operations, USCIS's financial structure faces more challenges when confronted with surges in the demand for non-fee immigration benefits or costs of new initiatives that may not have been anticipated when fees were set. Similar challenges occur during periods of prolonged decreases in petition and application filings, as occurred during the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency. Adjusting fees is time-consuming and often contentious, limiting USCIS's ability to adjust quickly to changing circumstances. Similarly, the COVID-19 pandemic revealed the existing system's inability to provide the same level of service for fee paying applicants during periods of declining applications and fee revenue.¹⁷⁶ USCIS responses to declining applications and fee revenue included shifting personnel among different responsibilities and relying on a substantial carryover balance.

USCIS can face significant fiscal challenges during times of international crisis and other situations that suddenly cause many individuals to seek humanitarian-related immigration benefits. Unlike other services, processing such benefits generate little or no fee revenue for USCIS. In past fee schedules, processing costs for humanitarian-related immigration benefits were implicitly recouped through the fees established for other immigration benefits.¹⁷⁷ In its 2024 final rule, USCIS addressed this issue explicitly by assessing sponsors of employment-based immigrants—considered more able to pay among those seeking immigration benefits—an Asylum Program Fee in addition to their regular petition-related fees. While some commentators have questioned the fairness of this approach,¹⁷⁸ the fees reflect the challenge that USCIS faces when distributing the cost of unreimbursed humanitarian services across its fee-paying petitioners and applicants.¹⁷⁹

Humanitarian-related benefits often represent the beginning of ongoing service demand from foreign nationals seeking both additional benefits (e.g., re-parole, employment authorization) and more permanent immigration status. Some assert that persons receiving humanitarian parole will submit multiple applications and petitions to USCIS in a concerted effort to obtain more stable status to remain in the United States.¹⁸⁰ Groups initially seeking benefits may seem relatively manageable in light of USCIS's overall annual processing volume, but related and ancillary immigration benefits, as well as customer service inquiries and other non-adjudicative tasks, amplify the impact for USCIS. The recent increase of migrant arrivals at the Southwest border, for example, represents individuals at the early stages of seeking some form of permanent status, and some could be expected to submit additional applications to stabilize their status and provide them with an opportunity to remain in the United States.

Some proposed solutions address agency funding. For example, to address the structural issue of relying mostly on fee revenue, some observers have proposed establishing a line of credit with the U.S. Treasury for funding the hiring of agency personnel to address specific issues such as processing backlogs.¹⁸¹ Others argue that market-based approaches such as expanding Premium Processing are the most effective way to reduce the processing backlog and make immigration benefit waiting times comparable to those of other advanced economies.¹⁸² Other proposals address adjudication procedures. Some contend, for example, that the adjudication of renewals of certain petitions or applications with especially high approval rates are unnecessary and merit automatic approval.¹⁸³ Others have proposed expanding validity periods of certain immigration benefits to reduce the frequency of renewals.¹⁸⁴

Some observers argue that implementing different immigration policies would free up agency resources to address the current processing backlogs.¹⁸⁵ They contend, for example, that revising current asylum policies to screen applicants more stringently would reduce the number of claims whose applicants have little chance of receiving asylum. Likewise, they contend that immigration benefits such as parole and deferred action were intended by Congress, and are so stated in the INA, to be conferred on a case-by-case basis and not to large classes of individuals based on meeting certain eligibility criteria. They argue that using agency resources to process such applications increases costs and extends waiting times for other petitioners and applicants.¹⁸⁶

USCIS processes impact a sizable population of stakeholders that includes asylum seekers, temporary visitors, prospective permanent immigrants, and applicants for naturalization, among others. Its ability to efficiently and expediently process millions of applications and petitions for immigration benefits every year affects applicants and petitioners seeking to advance their careers and personal lives, as well as related U.S. citizen family members, U.S. employers, and broader communities.¹⁸⁷ Many observers argue that expeditious processing of immigrant benefits is critical for attracting skilled immigrants and maintaining U.S. economic competitiveness,¹⁸⁸ an argument that some in Congress have reiterated.¹⁸⁹

Appendix A. Fee and Processing Statistics

Appendix B. USCIS Workload Volume