By Emma Israel
Baines Report
August 7, 2020
The US Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) is often referred to as the “good guys” of the immigration bureaucracy. They are the benefits giving arm of the web of departments and agencies that govern US immigration policy. USCIS oversees reviewing and issuing immigrant visas, green cards and citizenship.
In May, the agency announced they were facing a huge budget shortfall, ostensibly due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and requested emergency funding from Congress in order to avoid “drastic actions” later in the summer. However, emergency funding will not solve the budget crisis facing the USCIS because it is the Trump Administration’s opposition to immigration that has caused systemic underfunding within the agency, not COVID-19.