U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) Functions and Funding

Summary

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), an agency within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), performs multiple functions including the adjudication of immigration and naturalization petitions, consideration of refugee and asylum claims and related humanitarian and international concerns, and a range of immigration-related services, such as issuing employment authorizations and processing nonimmigrant change-of-status petitions. Processing immigrant petitions remains USCIS’s leading function. In FY2014, it handled roughly 6 million petitions for immigration-related services and benefits.

USCIS’s budget relies largely on user fees. The agency and its predecessor, the former Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), have had the legal authority to charge fees for immigration services since before the passage of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 (INA). In 1988, Congress created the Immigration Examinations Fee Account, which made the portion of USCIS’s budget collected from user fees no longer subject to annual congressional approval.

Since the President announced the Immigration Accountability Executive Action on November 20, 2014, USCIS’s budgetary structure has received increased attention. Among other provisions, the executive action included an expansion of the existing Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program that was initiated in 2012, as well as a new Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents (DAPA) program that grants certain unauthorized aliens protection from removal, and work authorization, for three years. If implemented, these programs would require applicants to submit petitions and pay a user fee to USCIS. The user fees would purportedly pay for the cost of administering the program.

Some in Congress oppose deferred action programs. However, Congress has limited options for halting the programs using the annual appropriations process. The executive action highlights some challenges Congress faces if it wishes to exert control over an agency whose funding is largely independent of the annual appropriations process. 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 their prohibited use for certain purposes would require an enactment of law.

Congress does appropriate a small portion of the agency’s budget each year, primarily to fund E-Verify, a system used to electronically confirm that individuals have proper authorization to work in the United States. Since 2003, such annual direct appropriations have constituted a declining portion of USCIS’s budget. While some have welcomed this trend for reducing the cost to U.S. taxpayers of running USCIS, 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.

Potential issues that Congress may decide to consider include USCIS’s accountability to Congress, given that much of its funding does not require annual congressional approval; whether some fees are at levels that inhibit some potential applicants from applying for benefits or inhibit lawful permanent residents from becoming citizens; whether the pace and progress of information technology modernization is sufficient to meet the agency’s multiple functions and efficiently serve petitioners; and whether USCIS’s management of its personnel and resources adequately addresses sudden demands for processing and adjudication of petitions while maintaining processing times and adequate levels of service for all other petitions.