Fund legal immigration through the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services. It’s something we can ALL agree on.
The United States of America
needs a well-functioning LEGAL immigration system now more than ever. There is bipartisan support for funding the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services for the benefit of American businesses, the military, and our economy.
Every year, hundreds of thousands of international students generate millions of dollars for American universities and local communities. With these cuts, student visa programs would not get processed, leading to millions in lost revenue.
We also seek to keep the flame of liberty alive for legal asylum seekers and refugees.
These services are SELF-funded by applicants paying fees while seeking legal naturalization and documentation.
- Gallup Poll
These job cuts will stifle legal immigration by effectively shutting down existing legal pathways for naturalization, including for those seeking naturalization through documented military service.
It’s the wrong time for the government to hurt businesses and our armed forces which are both already reeling from the COVID-19 pandemic. American businesses, including many who are directly combatting COVID-19 through vital science and research, require legal pathways to achieve documentation and naturalization employees for their enterprise.
- Nearly 70 percent of the 19,000 USCIS employees face furloughs because the immigration processing fees that fund it have plummeted due to COVID-19 and restrictions on immigration. USCIS has seen a 50 percent drop in fees from applications since March, when the COVID-19 crisis changed many people’s plans for immigration.
- These furloughs mean there will be 13,400 fewer workers processing immigration applications, leading to a huge clog in an already backlogged immigration system and thousands of Americans out of work.
- USCIS is responsible for adjudicating Citizenship and Adjustment of Status cases, and helping businesses, the military, and non-governmental organizations legally access the documented workforce they need, while also assisting refugees and asylum seekers to gain legal entry to the United States of America.
- The USCIS is traditionally self-funded, run entirely on the fees paid by legal applicants seeking naturalization and other immigration related services.
- The plans backed by supporters of legal immigration, the military, American businesses, and asylum seekers would pay back the $1.2 billion Congressional infusion of funds — allocated over two years — by adding a 10% increase to fees paid by legal applicants until fee-based and/or Congressional funding for the USCIS stabilizes.
- Some have argued that the current crisis calls for a new long-term approach by which Congress allocates more permanent public funding and also takes more oversight of the agency, but in the short term, experts and advocates say that the funding infusion offered by the USCIS through a bill sponsored by U.S. Representative Emanuel Cleaver of Missouri’s 5th District would stave off the immediate threat posed by the furloughs and the debilitating blow it would levy against legal immigration, businesses, and the military: https://cleaver.house.gov/sites/cleaver.house.gov/files/USCIS%20funding%20bill.pdf
The cuts would put American businesses and the economy in a chokehold. Businesses and the military will definitely be the first domestic groups to feel the pain from these cuts, and it’s the wrong time for the government to hurt businesses and our armed forces which are both already reeling from the COVID-19 pandemic.
American businesses, including many who are directly combatting COVID-19 through vital science and research, require legal pathways to achieve legally documented and naturalized employees for their enterprise.
Additionally, the millions of dollars in lost revenues to universities and communities through the country due to a halt in the issuance of student visas will have a major debilitating effect on the economy as a whole
Congress must act to ensure the American dream and the American economy are supported.
USCIS Furloughs will hurt business, military, economy, and stifle legal immigration