U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) is postponing its furlough of more than half of its workforce for nearly another month, Senate Appropriations Vice Chair Patrick Leahy said on Friday. The agency had been set to furlough 13,000 of its 20,000 employees on Aug. 3 until revised estimates showed the agency actually had enough funds to continue work for several more weeks, his office said. Leahy said in Friday’s announcement that the furlough date has now been postponed through Aug. 31 as he works to ensure USCIS’ continuity.
“The announcement came after Leahy pressed the organization to reverse course on its intended furloughs after he made public the fact that new revenue estimates showed the agency ending the fiscal year in a surplus, and not the previously projected $571 million deficit,” Leahy’s office said. “USCIS Acting Director Joseph Edlow gave the assurances to Leahy that the furloughs would be delayed on Friday morning by phone.”
“Furloughing thousands of public servants in the middle of a pandemic and at record unemployment would have upended the lives of the dedicated women and men working at USCIS and impacted thousands who rely on their services, and after new revenue estimates showed the agency ending the fiscal year with a surplus it was completely unjustifiable,” Leahy said in the statement. “I’m glad the agency decided to change course for now, but I remain troubled the Trump administration was pushing for these furloughs in the first place.”
But as advocates have said, the Trump administration has had it out for the agency, which processes naturalization forms and other immigration paperwork. “There are multiple policies that simply lock immigrants out from even applying, which decreases the amount of money coming into the agency,” Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Watch Director Ur Jaddou said this past May. Other devastating results have included tens of thousands of green cards and work permits going unprinted because the agency has literally shut down the printers.
Leahy said in his statement that “[w]ith regard to the projected USCIS deficit for fiscal year 2021, I am committed to addressing this issue in the next coronavirus supplemental so that USCIS can continue accomplishing its missions without a furlough.”
Congress must ensure USCIS can fairly operate, but it's also up to USCIS to not be deliberately sabotaging itself. Right now, hundreds of thousands of young immigrants are unable to apply for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) protections for the first time and infuse some much-needed revenue into USCIS because the administration is outright defying court orders to fully reopen the program. House Judiciary leaders have slammed the administration’s outright contempt of the law.
“Your administration’s refusal to carry out the Court’s directive is an illegal usurpation of authority in violation of the separation of powers,” House leaders Jerry Nadler and Zoe Lofgren said. “As Congress, the federal courts, and the public have repeatedly reminded you: ‘Presidents are not kings.’ Failure to comply with the Supreme Court’s judgment is illegal, unconstitutional, and effectively an act of tyranny.”
