The last-minute miracle happened. BuzzFeed News reports U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has canceled plans to furlough nearly 70% of the immigration agency’s staff on Aug. 30, a last-minute decision that comes just days after the House of Representatives passed urgent legislation aiming to stop the impending furloughs.
However, Hamed Aleaziz reports that acting (because of course he is) USCIS Director Joseph Edlow “said in his staff email that while the financial outlook for the agency had ‘temporarily improved’ due to an increase in revenue, they would still need a long term fix from Congress.”
USCIS had been scheduled to furlough more than 13,000 of the agency’s 20,000 employees in a matter of days, a move that would have left the self-funded agency with a “skeleton crew” and forced the nation’s legal immigration system “to a halt,” one former Obama adviser told Forbes.
“This bill is not a complete solution to USCIS’s current fiscal challenges,” Immigration and Citizenship Subcommittee Chairwoman Zoe Lofgren said in a statement in announcing bipartisan legislation aiming to stop the furloughs. “But it will provide the agency with quick access to additional revenue that will eliminate the need for immediate furloughs.”
While that bill passed the House over the weekend, its future in the Senate had been more uncertain. There is bipartisan support in avoiding these mass USCIS furloughs, but then there’s also Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s legislative graveyard. At least for now, the agency is not shutting down.
“Breaking—appears USCIS has pulled back from furloughs that were looming by end of week,” tweeted Gregory Chen of the American Immigration Lawyers Association. “This should have come sooner, since it's clear USCIS has funds to carry it for several more months and should not have risked its personnel. But better late than never.” But this agency also needs urgent stability, for the sake of applicants and staff.
"People are just completely exhausted by the back and forth of it," an unnamed USCIS employee told CBS News. "By the constant uncertainty. By the fact that the letter also indicates this is really just another stay. Execution still may come. The feeling that this was a fake furlough threat held over us as a bargaining chip and that we're merely pawns."
