U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS): Operations and Issues for Congress

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS): Operations and Issues for Congress

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services
April 5, 2024
(USCIS): Operations and Issues for Congress
William A. Kandel
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), within the Department of Homeland
Specialist in Immigration
Security, is responsible for adjudicating applications and petitions for immigration benefits.
Policy
These include requests for nonimmigrant (temporary) status, lawful permanent resident status,

naturalization, humanitarian relief (e.g., asylum, temporary protected status), and employment
authorizations, among other benefits and services. USCIS’s other responsibilities encompass

several national security functions such as immigration fraud detection and prevention;
employment and immigration status verification; and background checks. Processing immigration benefits remains USCIS’s
primary function. In FY2023, it adjudicated applications and petitions for more than 10 million immigration-related benefits.
USCIS is relatively distinct among federal agencies because it funds its operations largely from customer user-fee revenue. In
addition to its standard fees for immigration benefits, USCIS collects Premium Processing fees for expedited processing.
Premium Processing revenue constitutes a growing share of USCIS annual revenue. Appropriations typically make up less
than 5% of its budget. Congress annually appropriates a relatively small portion of the agency’s budget to fund employment
verification and civic integration activities. Congress has occasionally appropriated funds to digitize the agency’s operations
and reduce processing backlogs. USCIS maintains a carryover balance to help manage fluctuations in revenue and changing
demand for application and petition processing.
From FY2013 to FY2023, the number of immigration forms annually received by USCIS increased 52%, from 6.9 million to
10.4 million. Over the same period, the cumulative number of pending forms that remained unadjudicated by USCIS at year
end increased approximately 200%, from 3.0 million to 9.0 million. USCIS’s increased pending caseload has been attributed
to additional vetting requirements implemented during the Trump Administration, multiple impacts of the COVID-19
pandemic, temporary restrictions on hiring, and unanticipated international events that forced USCIS to shift personnel to
address immediate crises at the expense of more promptly adjudicating conventional applications and petitions.
When USCIS was created in 2002, non-fee humanitarian-related operations represented less than 5% of the agency’s
operating expenses; in 2022, they represented almost 20%. As historically elevated levels of migrants arrive at the Southwest
border and request asylum, USCIS must contend with large numbers of persons seeking asylum and filing requests for
employment authorization. Because USCIS does not receive fee revenue for processing most humanitarian benefits provided
to asylum seekers and refugees, unexpected events and trends create fiscal pressures on the agency that result in anomalous
requests to Congress for supplemental appropriations.
USCIS must regularly assess and revise its fees as necessary through regulation to ensure that revenues meet expenses. In
January 2024, USCIS issued a final rule, effective April 1, 2024, that increased many fees over the previous 2016 fee
schedule. USCIS also implemented an asylum fee for sponsors of employment-based immigrants to help cover costs of its
increased asylum application caseload. USCIS revised its fee schedule in 2002, 2004, 2005, 2007, 2010, and 2016. An
attempt to revise the fee schedule in 2020 was halted by a federal court and subsequently withdrawn.
Policy issues that Congress may consider include supplemental appropriations for backlog reduction and other purposes;
whether the pace and progress of USCIS’s digitization efforts are sufficient given its largely paper-based workflow; USCIS’s
accountability to Congress, given that much of its funding does not require annual congressional approval; whether some
USCIS fees are at levels that inhibit some potential applicants from applying for benefits or discourage lawful permanent
residents from becoming citizens; whether the agency’s fraud detection efforts are sufficient; and whether USCIS’s
management of its personnel and resources adequately addresses sudden demands for processing and adjudication of some
benefits while maintaining processing times and adequate levels of service for all others.

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Contents
Introduction ..................................................................................................................................... 1
USCIS Structure and Responsibilities ............................................................................................. 2
Structure .................................................................................................................................... 2
Responsibilities ......................................................................................................................... 2
Adjudicating Petitions, Applications, and Requests ........................................................... 2
Fraud Detection and National Security ............................................................................... 3
Employment Eligibility Verification ................................................................................... 3
Immigration Status Verification .......................................................................................... 4
Civic Integration ................................................................................................................. 4
USCIS Funding ............................................................................................................................... 4
USCIS Fee Accounts ................................................................................................................. 5
Immigration Examinations Fee Account (IEFA) ................................................................ 5
H-1B Nonimmigrant Petitioner Fee Account...................................................................... 7
Fraud Prevention and Detection Fee Account ..................................................................... 8
EB-5 Integrity Fund ............................................................................................................ 8
Annual Appropriations .............................................................................................................. 8
Year-End Carryover Balance ..................................................................................................... 9
Issues for Congress ........................................................................................................................ 10
Fee Levels and Public Policy .................................................................................................. 10
Humanitarian Processing ........................................................................................................ 14
Supplementary Appropriations ................................................................................................ 15
Recent Processing Backlogs ................................................................................................... 17
Digitization and Customer Service ......................................................................................... 19
USCIS Fraud Detection and Admissibility ............................................................................. 21
Executive Action and Accountability to Congress .................................................................. 24
Concluding Observations .............................................................................................................. 24

Figures
Figure 1. USCIS Budget by Fee Revenue and Appropriations, FY2006-FY2024 .......................... 9
Figure 2. USCIS Carryover Balance, by Type, FY2003-FY2022 ................................................. 10
Figure 3. USCIS Forms Received, Approved, Denied, and Pending at Year End, FY2013-
FY2023 ....................................................................................................................................... 17

Tables
Table 1. USCIS FY2024 Budget Authority and Congressional Appropriations .............................. 5
Table 2. Status of End-to-End Electronic Processing by USCIS Line of Business ....................... 21

Table A-1. Fees for Selected USCIS Forms, 2005, 2007, 2010, 2016, and 2024 .......................... 27
Table B-1. USCIS Application and Petition Volume, FY2013 and FY2023 ................................. 30

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Appendixes
Appendix A. Fee and Processing Statistics ................................................................................... 27
Appendix B. USCIS Workload Volume ........................................................................................ 30

Contacts
Author Information ........................................................................................................................ 33

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Introduction
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), within the Department of Homeland
Security (DHS), processes applications and petitions for a broad range of immigration benefits
and services.1 USCIS is relatively distinct among federal agencies because it funds its operations
largely from customer user-fee revenue. USCIS regularly assesses and revises its fee schedule, if
necessary, through the regulatory process. Appropriations typically make up less than 5% of its
budget.
Congress has sometimes provided USCIS with funding for specific projects (see the
“Supplementary Appropriations” section), but more recently it appropriated funds to alleviate
relatively sudden revenue shortfalls stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic. The shortfalls and
events causing them may foreshadow future fiscal challenges for USCIS. When the agency was
created in 2002, humanitarian-related operations—typically provided for no fee—represented less
than 5% of the agency’s operating expenses. In 2022, such operations represented almost 20% of
operating expenses and reflected the impact of international events and the U.S. response, such as
the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and the surge of migrants
seeking asylum at the Southwest border.
USCIS maintains a carryover balance to help manage revenue and processing fluctuations, and it
collects relatively substantial Premium Processing fees for applicants and petitioners who seek
expedited processing. Although Premium Processing revenue constitutes a growing share of
USCIS annual revenue, and USCIS’s current carryover balance currently exceeds its minimum
threshold, the agency continues to face the possibility that unexpected events and unanticipated
surges in immigration benefit filings could destabilize its finances.
In January 2024, USCIS issued a final rule for a revised fee schedule, the first revision since
December 2016.2 In the rule, USCIS has implemented a new $600 Asylum Program Fee for
sponsors of employment-based immigrants to help offset the expense of its increased asylum
application caseload. The Asylum Program Fee represents not only an attempt to reduce fiscal
shortfalls in the future but also to assign agency costs of providing humanitarian relief to the
USCIS clients deemed most able to pay for them.
This report briefly reviews USCIS’s organizational structure and responsibilities.3 It then reviews
its budgetary structure including its three primary user fee accounts, congressional appropriations,
and carryover balance. The report then turns to policy issues for Congress, which include
methods for establishing fee amounts, supplemental appropriations, USCIS’s digitization efforts
for a largely paper-based workflow, the agency’s fraud prevention efforts, and its accountability
to Congress. The report ends with concluding observations.

1 Petitions to USCIS are submitted by sponsoring parties on behalf of individuals seeking immigration benefits.
Applications to USCIS are submitted directly by the individuals seeking immigration benefits.
2 For the most current fee schedule, see DHS, USCIS, Fee Schedule, USCIS Form G-1055, February 26, 2024,
https://www.uscis.gov/g-1055.
3 For a legal review of USCIS’s authorities and procedures, see CRS Legal Sidebar LSB10671, U.S. Citizenship and
Immigration Services: Authorities and Procedures.
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USCIS Structure and Responsibilities
The Homeland Security Act of 2002 (P.L. 107-296),4 abolished the former Immigration and
Naturalization Service (INS) and placed most INS functions under three new agencies as of
March 1, 2003: USCIS, Customs and Border Protection (CBP), and Immigration and Customs
Enforcement (ICE).
Structure
USCIS has about 285 offices around the world and employs roughly 20,000 employees and
contractors.5 USCIS also operates 10 asylum offices and over 100 Application Support Centers
that schedule appointments to collect information from immigration benefit petitioners and
applicants. Seven USCIS Directorates process immigration benefits.6 Within these directorates,
processing petitions and applications, the bulk of USCIS’s workload, occurs at six Service
Centers and 88 Field Offices in the United States, Puerto Rico, and Guam.7 USCIS also operates
Application Support Centers that collect biometric data; Asylum Offices for asylum-related
interviews and issues; the National Benefits Center for pre-adjudication, staging, and distribution
of benefit applications to USCIS field offices; and the National Records Center that stores
millions of immigration records and processes Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests and
applications for genealogy information.8 Six USCIS Program Offices handle administrative
functions.9
Responsibilities
Adjudicating Petitions, Applications, and Requests
In FY2023, USCIS received 10.4 million petitions and applications.10 This workload included 3.5
million applications for work authorization documents,11 2.0 million petitions related to lawful

4 Establishment of USCIS is codified at 6 U.S.C. §271.
5 DHS, USCIS, FYs 2023-2026 Strategic Plan, January 27, 2023. The number of USCIS offices often fluctuates; see
DHS Office of Inspector General (OIG), Continued Reliance on Manual Processing Slowed USCIS’ Benefits Delivery
during the COVID-19 Pandemic, OIG-22-12, December 28, 2021, p.1, (hereinafter, “DHS-OIG Report 2021”).
6 The seven directorates include External Affairs; Immigration Records and Identity Services; Field Operations; Fraud
Detection and National Security; Management; Refugee, Asylum, and International Operations; and Service Center
Operations. See USCIS organizational chart, March 30, 2023, at https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/document/
charts/USCIS-Org-Chart.pdf.
7 These include the California, Nebraska, Potomac, Texas, Vermont, and HART (Humanitarian, Adjustment, Removing
Conditions and Travel Documents) Service Centers. For information on field offices, see DHS, USCIS, “Field
Operations Directorate,” https://www.uscis.gov/about-us/organization/directorates-and-program-offices/field-
operations-directorate. For information on which specific petitions and applications are handled at each Service Center
and Field Office, see DHS, USCIS, “Check Case Processing Times.”
8 DHS, USCIS, “USCIS Service and Office Locator.”
9 Ibid. The six program offices include Administrative Appeals, Equal Opportunity and Inclusion, Chief Financial
Officer, Privacy, Investigations, and Performance and Quality.
10 See Appendix Table B-1 comparing USCIS forms received in FY2023 and FY2013, sorted by FY2023 volume.
11 For more information, see CRS Report R47483, Noncitizen Eligibility for Employment Authorization and Work-
Authorized Social Security Numbers (SSNs) and CRS Insight IN12258, Employment Eligibility for Migrants Released
from DHS Custody at the Southwest Border.
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U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS): Operations and Issues for Congress

permanent resident (LPR) status (i.e., green card),12 and about 825,000 naturalization
(citizenship) applications.13 USCIS also adjudicates requests for humanitarian-related
immigration relief, including applications from crime victims,14 children seeking status as special
immigrant juveniles,15 beneficiaries of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA)
program,16 and those eligible for temporary protected status (TPS).17 Personnel in USCIS’s
Refugee, Asylum, and International Operations Directorate interview and screen certain asylum
applicants,18 adjudicate refugee applications, and conduct background and record checks for some
immigrant petitions abroad.19
USCIS interacts with applicants and petitioners in two ways: through its website, USCIS Contact
Center, and through in-person appointments.20 USCIS also informs the public of its services via
public engagements and stakeholder outreach in multiple languages and settings.21
Fraud Detection and National Security
USCIS’s Office of Fraud Detection and National Security (FDNS) works to strengthen the
integrity of the immigration system by removing systemic vulnerabilities, expanding partnerships
with law enforcement and intelligence organizations, and determining whether individuals filing
for immigration benefits pose national security or public safety threats. FDNS manages USCIS
screening policy and procedures across all agency directorates and program offices. Adjudicators
must confirm that petitioners and applicants are eligible for the benefit they seek or reject them if
they do not meet the relevant requirements.22
Employment Eligibility Verification
USCIS administers the Employment Eligibility Verification (E-Verify) program, which is
available to employers to ensure their employees are allowed to work lawfully in the United

12 An LPR is a foreign national who has been granted authorization to live and work permanently in the United States.
In this report, lawful permanent resident, green card holder, and immigrant are synonymous. For more information, see
CRS Report R42866, Permanent Legal Immigration to the United States: Policy Overview.
13 For annual data from FY2014 through FY2022, see DHS, USCIS, FY2014-2018, 2018 USCIS Statistical Annual
Report and USCIS FY2018-2022, USCIS Statistical Annual Report FY 2022.
14 For more information, see CRS Legal Sidebar LSB10207, Asylum and Related Protections for Aliens Who Fear
Gang and Domestic Violence and CRS In Focus IF11942, Human Trafficking: Key Federal Criminal Statutes.
15 For background information, see archived CRS Report R43703, Special Immigrant Juveniles: In Brief.
16 For more information, see CRS Report R44764, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA): Frequently Asked
Questions.
17 For more information, see CRS Report RS20844, Temporary Protected Status and Deferred Enforced Departure.
18 A person seeking asylum applies for protection from persecution on the same grounds as a refugee but, unlike a
refugee, is present in the United States or at a U.S. port of entry. For more information, see CRS Report R45539,
Immigration: U.S. Asylum Policy. USCIS asylum officers adjudicate affirmative asylum applications for individuals
who are not in removal proceedings, while immigration judges in the Department of Justice’s (DOJ’s) Executive Office
for Immigration Review (EOIR) adjudicate defensive applications for those who are in removal proceedings.
19 A refugee is a person fleeing his or her country because of persecution or a well-founded fear of persecution on
account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion. For more
information, see CRS Report RL31269, Refugee Admissions and Resettlement Policy.
20 See DHS, USCIS, “USCIS Contact Center,” February 12, 2024.
21 DHS, USCIS, Immigration Examinations Fee Account, Fee Review Supporting Documentation, January 2023
(hereinafter, “USCIS Fee Review 2023”).
22 For more information, see CRS Legal Sidebar LSB10150, Immigration Laws Regulating the Admission and
Exclusion of Aliens at the Border.
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States.23 The system compares information entered by an employer from an employee’s USCIS
Form I-9, Employment Eligibility Verification, to DHS and Social Security Administration
databases.24 Unlike most other agency functions, the E-Verify program is funded by annual
congressional appropriations.
Immigration Status Verification
USCIS operates the Systematic Alien25 Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) program, which
provides online immigration status verification to federal, state, and local benefits-granting
agencies and licensing bureaus (e.g., departments of motor vehicles, licensing boards). Such
agencies use this information to help determine applicants’ eligibility for their benefits and
licenses.26 SAVE is funded by direct user fees, immigrant benefit fee revenue, and Premium
Processing fees.
Civic Integration
USCIS’s Office of Citizenship has a broad goal of facilitating immigrant civic participation and
integration into American society. It operates the Citizenship and Integration Grant program,
which funds immigrant-serving organizations that offer citizenship-related education programs
(e.g., English, U.S. history, civics) and naturalization application services.27 Like the E-Verify
program, the Citizenship and Integration Grant program is funded by annual congressional
appropriations.
USCIS Funding
USCIS funds its operations largely from customer user-fee revenue. The agency (and its
predecessor) has had the legal authority to establish and revise user fees and use them for their
operations since at least the passage of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 (INA; P.L.
82-414, §281).28
The most recent USCIS final budget authority figures (Table 1) show that congressional
appropriations in FY2024 ($281 million) comprised 4.5% of the agency’s total budget authority
($6.3 billion). Included in the latter total are authorized collections from four fee accounts that
either fund specific USCIS functions or are disbursed to other federal agencies. All four fee
accounts are described below.

23 For more information, see CRS Report R40446, Electronic Employment Eligibility Verification.
24 For a recent assessment of E-Verify, see DHS Office of Inspector General, USCIS Needs to Improve Its Electronic
Employment Eligibility Verification Process, OIG-21-56, August 25, 2021.
25 The term alien refers to someone who is not a U.S. citizen or U.S. national. Aliens include foreign nationals who are
both legally present and not legally present. Alien is defined in INA §101(a)(3), 8 U.S.C. §1101(a)(3). This report uses
the terms alien and foreign national interchangeably.
26 In FY2024, USCIS changed its nominal fee structure for SAVE to fully fund the program through its own user fees
instead of largely IEFA and Premium Processing user fees. DHS, United States Citizenship and Immigration Services,
Budget Overview, Fiscal Year 2025, Congressional Justification, CIS-IEFA-34.
27 USCIS operates two websites with information on both programs: http://www.uscis.gov/citizenship and
https://www.uscis.gov/citizenship-resource-center/civic-integration/learn-about-the-citizenship-and-integration-grant-
program/fy-2023-grant-recipients.
28 For an overview of USCIS’s legal authorities and procedures, see CRS Legal Sidebar LSB10671, U.S. Citizenship
and Immigration Services: Authorities and Procedures.
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Table 1. USCIS FY2024 Budget Authority and Congressional Appropriations
Description
Amount (dollars)
Immigration Examination Fee Account Revenue

5,901,378,000
Adjudication Operations
2,124,623,000

Field Operations
1,040,649,000

Fraud Detection and National Security
266,092,000

Service Center Operations
622,267,000

Support Services (admin. overhead)
195,615,000

Immigration Policy and Support
1,413,157,000

Refugee and Asylum Operations

424,950,000

Immigration Records and Applicant Services

605,761,000

Premium Processing (Including Transformation)
1,332,887,000

Collections

Fraud Prevention and Detection Account

56,140,000

H-1B Nonimmigrant Petitioner Account

20,000,000

EB-5 Integrity Fund

8,760,000
Congressional Appropriations

281,140,000
Employment Status Verification

111,085,000

Citizenship and Integration Grants

10,000,000

Application Processing

160,055,000

Total Enacted Budget Authority

6,267,418,000
Source: Further Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2024 (H.R. 2882), Explanatory Statement, Department of
Homeland Security, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, Final Bil amounts, Congressional Record, March 22,
2024, pp. H1873-H1874.
Notes: Figures in italics sum to the first nonitalicized figure above to the right, and nonitalicized figures sum to
the first bold figure above to the right.
USCIS Fee Accounts
To fund most of its operations, USCIS relies on four fee accounts established under different
legislative authorities:
• the Immigration Examinations Fee Account (IEFA);
• the H-1B Nonimmigrant Petitioner Fee Account;
• the Fraud Prevention and Detection Fee Account; and
• the EB-5 Integrity Fund.
Immigration Examinations Fee Account (IEFA)
In 1988, Congress created the IEFA, transforming the budgetary structure of the former INS by
making most funding for its immigration services functions no longer subject to annual
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congressional approval.29 The INA provides that funds deposited in the IEFA remain available
until expended “for expenses in providing immigration adjudication and naturalization services
and the collection, safeguarding and accounting for fees deposited in and funds reimbursed from
the ‘Immigration Examinations Fee Account.’”30 This language serves as a permanent
appropriation, making IEFA funds available without reliance on the annual appropriations
process.
The INA requires user fees to be set at a level ensuring full recovery of adjudication and
naturalization service costs, including the costs of services to foreign nationals who are not
charged fees (e.g., asylum applicants).31 User fees can also be set at levels to cover administrative
costs. As such, USCIS controls the authority to set user fee levels according to its budgetary
needs (see the “Fee Levels and Public Policy” section and “Executive Action and Accountability
to Congress” section). 32
In addition to its standard fees for immigration benefits, USCIS collects Premium Processing fees
from applicants and petitioners seeking expedited (within 15 business days) processing.
Established by statute in 2000 (P.L. 106-553, Appendix B, Title I, §112)33 and enacted the
following year, Premium Processing was originally limited to certain employment-based petitions
and applications.34 Its revenue was intended solely to support the cost of the premium processing
and help pay for backlog reduction.35 In 2021, Congress expanded USCIS’s authority to accept
Premium Processing fees for other immigration benefits and to use the revenue for other purposes
(see the “Supplementary Appropriations” section).36 Premium Processing revenue now supports
the cost of Premium Processing requests, information technology and other improvements to
adjudication-related infrastructure, lockbox and overhead costs, and other immigration and
naturalization processing costs.37
In FY2022, USCIS received 490,588 Premium Processing service requests, out of 8,629,636 total
requests for immigration benefits and services.38 Premium Processing requests thus accompanied

29 See P.L. 100-459, §209. Initially, only collected fee revenue exceeding $50 million was allocated to the INS to pay
for immigration adjudication and naturalization services. Congress subsequently amended the law that removed the $50
million condition, effectively funding all immigration adjudication activities with user fees. See P.L. 101-162. These
provisions are codified in INA §286(m), 8 U.S.C. §1356(m).
30 8 U.S.C. §1356(n).
31 8 U.S.C. §1356(m).
32 Some fees, such as those for TPS, are set in statute and cannot be adjusted by USCIS. See 8 C.F.R. §103.7(b)(1) for a
listing of all fees.
33 As codified in INA §286(u), 8 U.S.C. §1356(u).
34 By statute, USCIS may increase the Premium Processing fee according to the Consumer Price Index. For the most
recent increase, see DHS, USCIS, “Adjustments to Premium Processing Fees,” 88 Federal Register 89539-89550,
December 28, 2023.
35 All user fees from applications and petitions are pooled in IEFA to finance USCIS operations, except user fees from
Form I-907 Request for Premium Processing Services, which are tracked separately within IEFA.
36 See the Emergency Stopgap USCIS Stabilization Act (P.L. 116-159, §4102). The act requires that the
implementation of this provision must not increase processing times for non-Premium Processing immigration benefits,
and that Premium Processing can only be made available when USCIS has determined that it can adjudicate the
applicable immigration benefits within the timeframe specified by the Premium Processing fee.
37 DHS, United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, Budget Overview, Fiscal Year 2025, Congressional
Justification, p. CIS-IEFA-5.
38 For the total number of USCIS forms received in FY2022, see DHS, USCIS, Number of Service-wide forms By
Quarter, Form Status, and Processing Time, July 1, 2022-September 30, 2022, October 2022. For the number of
Premium Processing forms received in FY2022, see DHS, “Adjustment to Premium Processing Fees,” 88 Federal
Register 89539-89550, December 28, 2023, p. 89543.
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5.7% of all forms submitted to USCIS in FY2022. In the same year, Premium Processing revenue
represented 25.7% of total IEFA revenue.39 Six years earlier, in FY2016, the percentages were
4.0% and 13.6%, respectively.40 Thus, while Premium Processing requests increased by 43% over
this period, Premium Processing revenue increased by 88%.
H-1B Nonimmigrant Petitioner Fee Account
In 1998, Congress passed the American Competitiveness and Workforce Improvement Act
(ACWIA),41 which, among other provisions, temporarily increased the annual limit of individuals
receiving H-1B nonimmigrant status.42 To compensate for this increase and reduce employer
reliance on highly skilled nonimmigrant workers, the act established the H-1B Nonimmigrant
Petitioner Fee Account to provide training and education for American workers through programs
administered by the Department of Labor (DOL) and the National Science Foundation (NSF).
This provision thereby created an affirmative role for U.S. employers to assist U.S. workers in the
context of increased authorization of temporary workers. DOL receives 55% of this account’s
total revenues, NSF receives 40%, and USCIS receives the remaining 5%.43 In FY2023, USCIS
received roughly $20 million from the account, or 0.4% of its budget.44
The statutorily established H-1B Nonimmigrant Petitioner fee is currently $1,500 for employers
participating in the H-1B program with more than 25 full-time equivalent employees and $750
otherwise.45 Unless explicitly exempt, employers must pay an ACWIA fee for each H-1B worker
sponsored. Because the level of the fee is specifically set in statute, changing it would require
enactment of legislation.

39 In FY2022, IEFA Premium Processing revenue totaled $1.2 billion and IEFA non-Premium Processing revenue
totaled $3.6 billion for a total of $4.8 billion. DHS, United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, Budget
Overview, Fiscal Year 2025, Congressional Justification, p. CIS-IEFA-8.
40 DHS, United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, Budget Overview, Fiscal Years 2022, Congressional
Justification, p. CIS-IEFA-5 and 6. Congressional budget justifications do not present Premium Processing revenue
separately from total IEFA revenue for years prior to FY2016.
41 P.L. 105-277, §414(b), codified at 8 U.S.C. §1356(s), as amended by the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2005
(P.L. 108-447, Division J, Title IV, §427).
42 Nonimmigrants are foreign nationals who seek temporary entry to the United States for a specific purpose and a
delimited amount of time. Nonimmigrant classifications include foreign government officials, visitors, students, and
temporary workers, among others. For more information, see CRS Report R45938, Nonimmigrant and Immigrant Visa
Categories: Data Brief. H-1B visas are for nonimmigrant workers in specialty occupations requiring at least a
bachelor’s degree. For more information, see CRS Report R43735, Temporary Professional, Managerial, and Skilled
Foreign Workers: Policy and Trends.
43 The fee was initially set by the act at $500. DOL receives 50% of the total H-1B Nonimmigrant Petitioner Fee
revenue for demonstration programs and projects described in 29 U.S.C. §3224a, as well as 5% of the revenue to
decrease labor certification processing times for H-1B applications; NSF receives 30% of the revenue to fund
scholarships for low-income students to study mathematics, engineering, or computer science, as described in 42
U.S.C. §1869c, as well as 10% to support public-private partnerships in K-12 education. USCIS receives the remaining
5% to support H-1B nonimmigrant petition processing.
44 DHS, United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, Budget Overview, Fiscal Year 2025, Congressional
Justification, CIS-IEFA-11.
45 Employers that qualify as institutions of higher learning or nonprofit or government research organizations per INA
§212(p)(1) are exempt from this fee.
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Fraud Prevention and Detection Fee Account
In 2004, Congress passed the L-1 Visa and H-1B Visa Reform Act of 2004,46 which established
the Fraud Prevention and Detection Account. This account receives funds for fraud detection and
prevention activities from a $500 fee that must be paid by an employer either submitting an initial
H-1B, H-2B, or L nonimmigrant petition or seeking within those classifications to change a
worker’s employer.47 By statute, the Fraud Detection and Prevention Account fee revenue is
allocated equally among DHS, DOL, and the Department of State (DOS) for fraud detection and
prevention activities. As with the H-1B Nonimmigrant Petitioner fee, the Fraud Prevention and
Detection fee is established by statute, and USCIS has no authority to adjust it. In FY2023,
USCIS’s share of fee revenue from this account was about $54 million, or 1.0% of its total
budget.48
EB-5 Integrity Fund
In 1990, Congress created the EB-5 Immigrant Investor program to promote U.S. economic
growth through foreign capital investment and domestic job creation.49 The EB-5 immigrant
category is the fifth of five immigrant categories within the employment-based immigrant
system.50 It provides LPR status to up to 10,000 foreign nationals and their family members who
invest in a new commercial enterprise in the United States that generates specified employment
levels according to the type of investment.51
In 2022, Congress passed the EB-5 Reform and Integrity Act of 2022, which established the EB-5
Integrity Fund.52 Collected revenues from the related fees are used by DHS to conduct
investigations to ensure that monies invested in the program were obtained lawfully; detect and
investigate fraud and other crimes; determine whether EB-5 investments and investors are
complying with U.S. immigration laws; conduct regular audits and site visits; and for other
purposes that DHS deems necessary.53
Annual Appropriations
Historically, appropriations have comprised a relatively small share of USCIS’s budget (Figure 1)
and typically fund E-Verify and the Citizenship and Integration Grant program described above.
In some years, Congress has supplemented its usual appropriations for USCIS with additional
funding to address specific objectives. For example, Congress appropriated $25.3 million in
FY2009 to support a multiyear effort to modernize USCIS business processes and supporting

46 The act was contained within the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2005, (P.L. 108-447, Division J, Title IV, §426)
and is codified at 8 U.S.C. §1356(v).
47 The Fraud Fee does not apply to petitions that extend or amend an alien’s stay in the H-1B or L classifications filed
by a current employer.
48 DHS, United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, Budget Overview, Fiscal Year 2025, Congressional
Justification, CIS-5.
49 Immigration Act of 1990, P.L. 101-649, §121.
50 For more information, see CRS Report R47164, U.S. Employment-Based Immigration Policy.
51 For more information, see CRS Report R44475, EB-5 Immigrant Investor Program.
52 Section 102 of the EB-5 Reform and Integrity Act of 2022, Division BB of the Consolidated Appropriations Act,
2022 (P.L. 117-103), codified in 8 U.S.C. §1153(b)(5)(J). Fund collections include annual fees and petition fees, all in
addition to the IEFA fees established for each petition to recover the cost of adjudication. For more information, see
DHS, United States Citizenship and Immigration Services Budget Overview, Fiscal Year 2025, Congressional
Justification, p. CIS-EB5-3.
53 For more information, see DHS, USCIS, “EB-5 Integrity Fund,” September 29, 2023.
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systems.54 More recently, it appropriated money to reduce USCIS processing backlogs that arose
due to the COVID-19 pandemic (see the “Supplementary Appropriations” section).
Figure 1. USCIS Budget by Fee Revenue and Appropriations, FY2006-FY2024

Source: FY2006: Office of Management and Budget, FY2006 Budget Appendix, Department of Homeland
Security, p. 448; FY2007-FY2023: DHS Congressional Budget Justification, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration
Services, multiple years; FY2024: Further Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2024 (H.R. 2882), Explanatory
Statement, Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, Final Bil amounts,
Congressional Record, March 22, 2024, pp. H1873-H1874.
Notes: FY2024 represents final budget authority. Amounts for all other years are actual. Fee revenue includes
amounts for the IEFA, the H-1B Nonimmigrant Petitioner Account, the Fraud Prevention and Detection
Account, and starting in FY2023, the EB-5 Integrity Fund.
Year-End Carryover Balance
USCIS maintains a cash reserve or carryover balance from one fiscal year to the next that
represents accumulated unobligated and unexpended user-fee revenue. According to USCIS,
“IEFA requires a positive carryover balance to ensure that sufficient funds are available to
maintain operations at the start of each new fiscal year until it collects and deposits current year
fee revenue.”55 The balance helps the agency manage revenue fluctuations and unanticipated
demands on its processing operations.56 Following DHS financial management guidelines, USCIS
has established a minimum carryover target balance equal to planned first quarter spending.57

54 DHS, United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, Budget Overview, Fiscal Year 2010, Congressional
Justification, USCIS-41.
55 USCIS Fee Review 2023, p. 21.
56 According to USCIS, “For accounting purposes, USCIS cannot recognize revenue as earned until work is completed.
This means that USCIS recognizes revenue when it renders a decision on an immigration benefit request.
Consequently, USCIS maintains a carryover balance to cover the cost of processing applications and petitions that are
pending adjudication at the end of the fiscal year; serve as contingency funding in the event of an unexpected decline in
fee collections; cover the start-up costs of new or expanded programs before sufficient fee revenues from such
programs are collected (if a fee is to be collected); and cover other valid contingencies.” Ibid, p. 22.
57 USCIS describes this computed balance as “the planned total first quarter spending plus the annual net sequestration
difference.” Ibid, pp. 23-24. For more information on sequestration, see CRS Report R42972, Sequestration as a
Budget Enforcement Process: Frequently Asked Questions.
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Figure 2 shows that the total carryover balance has increased from $416 million in FY2003 to
$2.04 billion in FY2022. At the start of FY2024, the balance was projected at $2.2 billion.58 The
carryover balance consists of fees associated with USCIS’s non-Premium Processing workload
and its Premium Processing workload. The growing percentage of the latter underscores how
Premium Processing revenue increasingly supports USCIS fiscal stability.
Figure 2. USCIS Carryover Balance, by Type, FY2003-FY2022

Source: Unpublished data provided to CRS by USCIS Office of Legislative Affairs, November 27, 2023.
Notes: Prior to FY2007, all Premium Processing revenue was effectively used during the fiscal year it was
received. USCIS was authorized to expand the use of Premium Processing revenue in the Emergency Stopgap
USCIS Stabilization Act (H.R. 8089, 117th Congress). Carryover balances exclude adjustments for sequestration.
Despite the positive and recently increasing carryover balance trendline shown in Figure 2,
USCIS signaled to Congress in FY2023 that it projected forthcoming negative carryover balances
(non-premium) for that fiscal year if its proposed 2023 fee rule could not be enacted (see the “Fee
Levels and Public Policy” section).59
Issues for Congress
Fee Levels and Public Policy
In January 2024, USCIS published a final rule, effective April 1, 2024, that increased many of its
fees for the first time since December 2016.60 USCIS maintains that the increases are required to
recover the full cost of providing adjudication and naturalization services at an adequate level,
and that absent this revision, the agency would incur a deficit of $1.1 billion.61 USCIS similarly

58 DHS, United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, Budget Overview, Fiscal Year 2025, Congressional
Justification, p. CIS-7.
59 USCIS Fee Review 2023, p. 22.
60 DHS, “U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Fee Schedule and Changes to Certain Other Immigration Benefit
Request Requirements,” 89 Federal Register 6194-6400, January 31, 2024 (hereinafter, “USCIS 2024 Final Fee
Rule”). See also, DHS, USCIS, “Frequently Asked Questions on the USCIS Fee Rule,” February 14, 2024.
61 The estimated deficit avoided was based on evaluated revenues and costs for FY2022 and FY2023. See USCIS 2024
Final Fee Rule, p. 6207.
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had revised its fee schedule in 2002,62 2004,63 2005,64 2007,65 2010,66 and 2016.67 (See Table A-1
for a comparison of most USCIS fees in 2005, 2007, 2010, 2016, and 2024). Although not
enacted, the Trump Administration issued a final rule adjusting the fee schedule in 2020 that was
later enjoined by a federal court.68 The rule was subsequently withdrawn by the Biden
Administration in 2021.69 In March 2023, DHS published another proposed rule to revise its fee
schedule that became the 2024 final rule.70
USCIS revises most fees through regulation. Like other federal agencies that charge user fees,
USCIS must regularly assess and revise its fee schedule.71 Proposed rules to do so typically elicit
many public concerns about the increasing cost of immigration benefits. USCIS has sometimes
quantified the overall change in the fee schedule using an overall weighted average percentage.72
In the 2007 final rule, USCIS reported that fees had increased by 66% compared to the 2005 fee
schedule.73 In its 2010 final rule, the agency reported an increase of 10% over its 2007 schedule.74
In 2016, USCIS reported an increase of 21% over the 2010 fee schedule,75 and the 2020 final rule
reported a 20% increase over 2016.76 Although the 2023 proposed rule notice for the most recent
revision specified an overall weighted average increase of 40% over the 2016 schedule, the 2024
final rule notice, which reflected fee reductions from the 2023 proposed rule, did not quantify the

62 DOJ, Immigration and Naturalization Service, “Adjustment of Certain Fees of the Immigration Examinations Fee
Account,” 66 Federal Register 65811-65816, December 21, 2001.
63 DHS, “Adjustment of the Immigration Benefit Application Fee Schedule,” 69 Federal Register 20528-20536, April
15, 2004.
64 The 2005 revision was implemented solely to account for inflation and increased fees by an average of $10. DHS,
“Adjustment of the Immigration Benefit Application Fee Schedule,” 70 Federal Register 56182-56184, September 26,
2005.
65 DHS, “Adjustment of the Immigration and Naturalization Benefit Application and Petition Fee Schedule,” 72
Federal Register 29851-29874, May 30, 2007.
66 DHS, “U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Fee Schedule,” 75 Federal Register 58962-58991, September 24,
2010 (hereinafter, “USCIS 2010 Final Fee Rule”).
67 DHS, “U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Fee Schedule,” 81 Federal Register 73292-73332, October 24,
2016 (hereinafter, “USCIS 2016 Final Fee Rule”).
68 DHS, “U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Fee Schedule and Changes to Certain Other Immigration Benefit
Request Requirements,” 85 Federal Register 46788-46929, August 3, 2020 (hereinafter, “USCIS 2020 Final Fee
Rule”).
69 DHS, “U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Fee Schedule and Changes to Certain Other Immigration Benefit
Request Requirements,” 86 Federal Register 7493, January 29, 2021.
70 See DHS, “U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Fee Schedule and Changes to Certain Other Immigration
Benefit Request Requirements,” 88 Federal Register 402-602, January 4, 2023 (hereinafter, “USCIS 2023 Fee
Schedule Proposal”).
71 USCIS’s authority to set user fees comes from Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB’s) Circular A-25 and the
Chief Financial Officers Act of 1990 (P.L. 101-576, §902(a)(8)) which states that each federal agency’s Chief Financial
Officer must “review, on a biennial basis, the fees, royalties, rents, and other charges imposed by the agency for
services and things of value it provides, and make recommendations on revising those charges to reflect costs incurred
by it in providing those services and things of value.” The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has assessed how
USCIS fees correspond to its processing costs; see GAO, Federal User Fees: Fee Design Characteristics and Trade-
Offs Illustrated by USCIS’s Immigration and Naturalization Fees, GAO-10-560T, March 23, 2010.
72 In its various proposed and final rules, USCIS did not include a description of its methodology for computing the
cited overall weighted average percentage changes in fees.
73 DHS, “Adjustment of the Immigration and Naturalization Benefit Application and Petition Fee Schedule,” 72
Federal Register 4888-4915, p. 4910. The fee schedules in the proposed and final rules were essentially identical.
74 USCIS 2010 Final Fee Rule, p. 58962.
75 USCIS 2016 Final Fee Rule, p. 73292.
76 USCIS 2020 Final Fee Rule, p. 46788.
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ultimate overall change. According to USCIS, fee increases in the final rule generally reflect an
upper limit of 26%, equivalent to the increase in the Consumer Price Index since 2016, the year
of the previous fee schedule. The fee increases for many benefits fall below 26%.77
Considerations for setting fees can be broad. In a 2010 assessment, the U.S. Government
Accountability Office (GAO) outlined four policy considerations for setting fee levels: equity
(everyone pays their fair share), efficiency (the economic value that beneficiaries place on the
service), revenue adequacy (the extent to which fee collections cover the intended share of costs),
and administrative burden (the full cost of fee administration).78
By contrast, in its 2024 proposed rule issuance, USCIS distinguished between two primary policy
considerations: a beneficiary pays principle (the beneficiaries of a service pay for its cost) and an
ability-to-pay principle (those more capable of bearing the burden of fees pay more for the
service than those with less ability to pay).79 These two perspectives reflect a debate over who
should pay for immigration services received by fee-exempt beneficiaries. For example, the
decision to exempt asylum seekers from paying an application fee means that USCIS must then
recover the cost of processing those applications through higher fees for other immigration
benefits. Similarly, USCIS’s $50 fee for registrants of TPS, established by statute in 1990, cannot
be revised through regulation to reflect decades of increasing processing costs. Those costs must
then be recovered from other user fees.80
In its 2023 proposed rule, USCIS estimated that 1 million of the 8 million forms it received in
FY2022 (about 12.5% of total processing volume) had no fee, were fee-exempt, or were fee-
waived.81 According to USCIS, humanitarian-related processing costs, which are not fully
covered by related user fees, represented roughly 5% of USCIS’s budget when the agency was
created in 2002. In 2022, it represented almost 20% of USCIS’s budget.82 Consequently, while
some of USCIS’s recent financial shortfall can be attributed to temporary disruptions caused by
COVID, financial challenges for the agency increasingly stem from growing numbers of asylum
seekers and others seeking humanitarian relief.83
The Asylum Program fee demonstrates how USCIS applied the ability-to-pay principle in its
2024 final fee schedule. The fee—$600 for businesses with more than 25 employees, $300 for all
other businesses, and no fee for nonprofit organizations—is incurred by employers filing the I-
129 Petition for Nonimmigrant Worker and I-140 Immigrant Petition for Alien Worker. USCIS
notes that this fee allows fees for other immigration benefits to be lower than if the asylum
program costs were spread evenly among all fee payers.84

77 DHS, USCIS, “Frequently Asked Questions on the USCIS Fee Rule,” February 14, 2024.
78 GAO, Fee Design Characteristics and Trade-Offs Illustrated by USCIS’s Immigration and Naturalization Fees,
GAO-10-560T, March 23, 2010.
79 USCIS 2024 Final Fee Rule, p. 6246.
80 INA §244(c)(1)(B), 8 U.S.C. §1254a(c)(1)(B). The fee was established in 1990; to have the same purchasing power
in 2023, it would need to be $112. See DHS, Annual Report 2023 Citizenship and Immigration Services Ombudsman,
June 30, 2023 (hereinafter, “2023 USCIS Ombudsman Report”), p. 49. Other fees also established in statute include the
Fraud Prevention and Detection and H-1B Nonimmigrant Petitioner Accounts, described previously.
81 USCIS 2023 Fee Schedule Proposal, p. 405.
82 Testimony of USCIS Director Ur Jaddou, U.S. Congress, House Committee on Appropriations, United States
Citizenship and Immigration Services FY23 Budget Request, 117th Cong., 2nd sess., April 6, 2022.
83 See also 2023 USCIS Ombudsman Report, p. v; and National Immigration Forum, Remaking USCIS: Supplementing
a Fee-Funded Agency, April 8, 2022.
84 USCIS 2023 Fee Schedule Proposal, p. 452.
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USCIS may also revise eligibility criteria for fee waivers.85 USCIS recently estimated that for
FY2020, $229.4 million in fee waivers were granted, which represented 5.9% of actual FY2020
IEFA revenue.86 Under current regulations, applicants may receive a fee waiver if they can clearly
demonstrate an inability to pay.87 While USCIS accepts fee waiver applications for about 25
different applications and petitions,88 it will not authorize fee waivers in cases where “a waiver is
inconsistent with the benefit requested, which may require establishing financial stability.”89
Advocates for lower USCIS fees argue that higher fees impose hardship disproportionately on
those seeking immigration services and benefits, including small businesses.90 Some have argued,
for example, that higher fees may force some families to seek services and benefits incrementally
rather than as a family unit, causing some members to forgo the application process entirely.91
Others have asserted that current fees required to submit a naturalization application discourage
eligible low-income immigrants from naturalizing.92 Similar arguments have been made in
response to the 2023 proposed and 2024 final fee schedule rules.93
Proponents of fee increases have argued that immigration fees must reflect the full cost of
delivering immigration services. Such arguments form the core of USCIS’s response to comments
opposing fee increases in the 2023 proposed and 2024 final fee schedule rules. Some have
objected to any fee structure that would require “overtaxed and overstretched Americans” to
support through their tax dollars an agency they view as primarily benefiting immigrants.94

85 For example, on October 25, 2019, USCIS announced that it was revising its fee waiver policies by both requiring
applicants to submit tax transcripts to demonstrate income, and no longer accepting evidence of having received a
means-tested public benefit as evidence of the inability to pay USCIS fees. See DHS, USCIS, “USCIS Updates Fee
Waiver Requirements,” October 25, 2019. See also DHS, USCIS, “Agency Information Collection Activities; Revision
of a Currently Approved Collection: Request for Fee Waiver; Exemptions,” 84 Federal Register 26137-26140, June 5,
2019. These policies were implemented in December 2019 and subsequently enjoined by a federal court. See City of
Seattle v. Dep’t of Homeland Sec., No. 3:19–CV–07151–MMC (N.D. Cal. Dec.).
86 See USCIS Fee Review 2023, p. 33.
87 See 8 C.F.R. §106.3 for regulations on fee waivers and exemptions.
88 DHS, USCIS, “Instructions for Request for Fee Waiver,” OMB No. 1615-0116, September 3, 2021.
89 USCIS 2023 Fee Schedule Proposal. For information on fee waivers, see USCIS Policy Memorandum, Fee Waiver
Guidelines as Established by the Final Rule of the USCIS Fee Schedule; Revisions to Adjudicator’s Field Manual
(AFM) Chapter 10.9, AFM Update AD11-26, PM-602-0011.1, March 13, 2011.
90 See, for example, U.S. Congress, Senate Committee on Appropriations, Subcommittee on Homeland Security,
Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Bill, report to accompany S. 2625, 118th Cong., 1st sess., July 27,
2023, p. 102; and Adriel Orozco, “USCIS Finalizes Increase in Fees for Immigration-Related Applications,”
Immigration Impact, American Immigration Council, February 9, 2024.
91 See, for example, USCIS 2024 Final Fee Rule, p. 6317.
92 Madeleine Sumption and Sarah Flamm, The Economic Value of Citizenship for Immigrants in the United States,
Migration Policy Institute, Washington, DC, September 2012; and National Foundation for American Policy,
Reforming the Naturalization Process, NFAP Policy Brief, August 2011. In its 2010 revised fee schedule, USCIS
exempted the N-400 Application for Naturalization from a fee increase.
93 See, for example, Britain Eakin, “Proposed Visa Fee Hikes Draw Widespread Criticism,” Law360, March 15, 2023.
94 Statement by Representative Steven King in U.S. Congress, House Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on
Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security, and International Law, Hearing on the United States Citizenship
and Immigration Services, 111th Cong., 2nd session, March 23, 2010.
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Humanitarian Processing
In the past three years, historically high numbers of migrants have arrived at the Southwest
border.95 Many seek humanitarian relief and can potentially benefit from major immigration
programs such as asylum, humanitarian parole, and TPS.
Although USCIS is not directly responsible for border security, it is involved with the asylum
screening process for certain migrant arrivals at the border. Most migrants who request asylum
are placed into formal removal proceedings and scheduled for a hearing with an immigration
judge in the Department of Justice’s (DOJ’s) Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR).96
Until recently, only immigration judges could adjudicate claims for humanitarian relief for
individuals in removal proceedings. As a result, the recent increase of migrant arrivals at the
Southwest border has contributed substantially to a sizable preexisting immigration courts
backlog, which at the end of 2023 exceeded three million cases.97
In May 2022, in response to the growing EOIR backlog, the Biden Administration initiated an
Asylum Officer Rule intended to reduce long waiting periods for asylum claims adjudication
through EOIR immigration courts. The rule authorized USCIS asylum officers to not only
provide the initial credible fear interviews but also adjudicate asylum cases through a new
Asylum Merits Interview (AMI).98 The rule also reduced asylum seekers’ waiting time before
being allowed to apply for work authorization.99 The rule applies prospectively and only to adults
and families in expedited removal proceedings who indicate an intent to apply for asylum or
express a fear of persecution, torture, or other harm if they return to their home country.100
Nevertheless, the rule is expected to be implemented gradually, and most individuals who receive
positive credible fear determinations will continue to be referred to EOIR for formal removal
proceedings.101
In October 2022, the Biden Administration established a humanitarian parole process for
nationals from Venezuela, a country facing considerable political turmoil and mass out-
migration.102 In January 2023, DHS expanded the process to nationals of Cuba, Haiti, and
Nicaragua.103 The CHNV processes (for nationals of Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela)

95 For background information, see archived CRS Report R47556, U.S. Border Patrol Encounters at the Southwest
Border: Fact Sheet.
96 For more information, see CRS Legal Sidebar LSB10150, Immigration Laws Regulating the Admission and
Exclusion of Aliens at the Border and CRS Report R47504, Asylum Process in Immigration Courts and Selected
Trends.
97 “Immigration Court Backlog Tops 3 Million; Each Judge Assigned 4,500 Cases,” TRAC Immigration, December 18,
2023.
98 USCIS asylum officers also have the option to refer asylum seekers to EOIR immigration judges for formal hearings.
DHS and DOJ, EOIR, “Procedures for Credible Fear Screening and Consideration of Asylum, Withholding of
Removal, and CAT Protection Claims by Asylum Officers,” Interim Final Rule, 87 Federal Register 18078-18226,
March 29, 2022 (hereinafter, “Asylum Officer Rule 2022”).
99 Some critics of the rule contend that its reduced work authorization waiting period will increase labor market
competition with U.S. workers and subverts Congress’s intention to discourage foreign nationals from applying for
asylum solely to work in the United States. See, for example, Arthur R. Arthur, “Biden Admin. Admits Its ‘Asylum
Officer Rule’ Will Further Impoverish Struggling U.S. Workers,” Center for Immigration Studies, November 16, 2023.
100 For more information, see DHS, USCIS, “Fact Sheet: Implementation of the Credible Fear and Asylum Processing
Interim Final Rule,” October 17, 2023.
101 Asylum Officer Rule, p. 18185.
102 For more information, see CRS In Focus IF10230, Venezuela: Political Crisis and U.S. Policy.
103 DHS, USCIS, “USCIS, Processes for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans,” September 20, 2023. For
more information on humanitarian parole, see CRS Report R46570, Immigration Parole.
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allow qualifying nationals and their immediate family members to come to the United States
temporarily for up to two years and apply for employment authorization upon arrival. As of
November 2023, USCIS had processed 312,430 CHNV beneficiaries.104
DHS has also designated more countries for TPS in recent years. In November 2018, for example,
417,341 individuals from 10 countries were TPS beneficiaries.105 Five years later, as of
September 2023, those figures had increased to 697,530 individuals from 16 countries.106 The
2023 figure included 239,175 nationals just from Venezuela.107 In September 2023, DHS
extended and redesignated Venezuela for TPS, thereby increasing the number of TPS-eligible
Venezuelan nationals to an estimated 472,000 individuals.108
As discussed above, applications for most humanitarian immigration benefits such as asylum,
humanitarian parole, and TPS generate either no fee revenue or revenue insufficient to cover
current processing costs. The sizable increase in the number of persons seeking humanitarian
benefits requires that USCIS devote more personnel to process these benefit applications, along
with related employment and travel authorization applications.
Supplementary Appropriations
Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, USCIS had not received supplementary appropriations from
Congress apart from those described in the “Annual Appropriations” section.109 The agency had
managed to operate with a sufficiently large carryover balance to cover fluctuations in its ongoing
expenses.110
The COVID-19 pandemic depressed international travel, which reduced the demand for U.S.
visas and lowered USCIS fee revenue.111 In March 2020, the Trump Administration imposed
immigration restrictions that also reduced USCIS fee revenue.112 The decreased demand for U.S.
visas as a result of the pandemic led USCIS to consume much of its carryover reserve.

104 Office of Homeland Security Statistics, “Immigration Enforcement and Legal Processes Monthly Tables,”
November 2023, data current as of January 24, 2024.
105 See CRS Report RS20844, Temporary Protected Status and Deferred Enforced Departure (version from March 29,
2019).
106 See CRS Report RS20844, Temporary Protected Status and Deferred Enforced Departure (version from December
11, 2023).
107 Ibid. See also CRS In Focus IF10230, Venezuela: Political Crisis and U.S. Policy; and archived CRS Insight
IN12040, New Immigration Policies Related to Venezuelan Migrants.
108 See DHS, “Secretary Mayorkas Announces Extension and Redesignation of Venezuela for Temporary Protected
Status,” press release, September 20, 2023.
109 Unlike “supplemental appropriations,” which are provided outside the annual appropriations process,
“supplementary appropriations” in this discussion are any discretionary appropriations provided to USCIS for unmet
needs outside of the agency’s usual funding pattern. They may be provided through annual or supplemental
appropriations measures.
110 DHS, USCIS, Fiscal Year 2022 Progress Report, December 2022, p. 11.
111 Walter Ewing, “The COVID-19 Pandemic Made USCIS Backlogs Go from Bad to Worse,” Immigration Impact,
July 6, 2021. Processing and interview backlogs overseas were compounded because of the agency’s decision in 2019
to close many of its international field and district offices and transfer their functions to DOS consular and USCIS
domestically based staff. USCIS stated that the closures would allow the agency to direct its resources toward clearing
immigration backlogs in the United States. For more information, see DHS, USCIS, “USCIS Will Adjust International
Footprint to Seven Locations,” August 9, 2019. For more information, see American Immigration Lawyers Association
(AILA), USCIS Closure of Some International Offices Impacts Applications, Petitions, and Forms Typically Processed
by Field Offices Overseas, AILA Practice Alert 19070237, updated February 17, 2020.
112 For background information, see CRS Insight IN11435, COVID-19-Related Suspension of Nonimmigrant Entry and
CRS Insight IN11362, COVID-19-Related Suspension of Immigrant Entry.
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In May 2020, USCIS notified Congress of an anticipated decline in petition and application
receipts and an expected budget shortfall. The agency requested $1.2 billion to support operations
until the end of FY2020 and initiated a hiring freeze and issued furlough notices to 70% of its
employees.113 The hiring freeze lasted from May 2020 through April 2021 and precipitated a
decline in the number of USCIS adjudicators and contract support staff who could not be replaced
when they left the agency. When revised budget estimates indicated that the agency had sufficient
funding, USCIS rescinded the furlough notices.114 The agency ended the fiscal year with a $582
million surplus.115
In response to the threat to USCIS’s fiscal condition, Congress passed the Emergency Stopgap
USCIS Stabilization Act,116 which gave USCIS authority to bolster its finances by expanding
Premium Processing. Previously, Premium Processing had been limited to USCIS Form I-129 for
nonimmigrant workers and USCIS Form I-140 for immigrant workers. The act allowed USCIS to
make it available for any immigration benefit considered appropriate. The act also expanded the
agency’s authority to use Premium Processing funds not only for infrastructure improvements but
also to cover operating expenses.
USCIS’s financial position subsequently improved. By the start of FY2022, the agency had $1.5
billion in cash reserves, and by the start of FY2023, over $2 billion (Figure 2). For FY2022, DHS
requested $345 million to address USCIS’s processing backlog and to support refugee processing,
which had expanded under the Biden Administration. Congress appropriated $275 million for
these purposes.117 Congress also appropriated $193 million to support the agency’s efforts with
Operation Allies Welcome.118 For FY2023, the Biden Administration requested an additional
$375 million for USCIS to operationalize Executive Order 14010 related to migration
management and orderly asylum processing.119 Congress responded by appropriating $133.4
million to the agency.120
In its 2025 budget request, USCIS asked Congress for a total appropriation of $265.2 million,
comprised of $110.2 million to fund the E-Verify program, $10 million for citizenship and
integration grants, and an additional $145 million for application processing for its refugee,
asylum, and international operations.121

113 DHS, USCIS, “Deputy Director for Policy Statement on USCIS’ Fiscal Outlook,” June 25, 2020. See also National
Immigration Forum, Remaking USCIS: Supplementing a Fee-Funded Agency, April 8, 2022.
114 Doris Meissner and Ruth Ellen Wasem, Toward a Better Immigration System: Fixing Immigration Governance at
the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Migration Policy Institute, October 2021, p. 29.
115 DHS, USCIS, Fiscal Year 2022 Progress Report, December 2022, p. 11.
116 Originally introduced in the 116th Congress as H.R. 8089, the act was included in the Continuing Appropriations
Act, 2021 and Other Extensions Act (P.L. 116-159, Division D, Title I). DHS subsequently published a final rule that
amended existing Premium Processing regulations codifying these statutory changes. See DHS, USCIS,
“Implementation of the Emergency Stopgap USCIS Stabilization Act,” 87 Federal Register 18227-18261, March 30,
2022.
117 Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2022 (P.L. 117-103, Division F, Title IV). Of the $275 million, $87.6 million was
designated for application processing. See the accompanying Joint Explanatory Statement – Division F, page 75, for
specific amounts. In its FY2023 Congressional Budget Justification, USCIS credits this funding with reducing USCIS’s
processing backlog from 5.3 million to 5.0 million forms between January 2022 and December 2022.
118 See Afghanistan Supplemental Appropriations Act, 2022, within the Extending Government Funding and
Delivering Emergency Assistance Act (P.L. 117-43, §2501).
119 DHS, USCIS, Budget Overview, Fiscal Year 2023 Congressional Justification, CIS-O&S-9.
120 DHS, USCIS, Budget Overview, Fiscal Year 2025 Congressional Justification, CIS-4.
121 Ibid.
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Recent Processing Backlogs
From FY2013 to FY2023, the volume of immigration forms received by USCIS increased 52%,
from 6.9 million to 10.5 million (Table B-1). During the same period, the number of pending
forms that USCIS had not yet adjudicated tripled, from 3.0 million to 9.0 million (Figure 3). In
February 2024, USCIS reported that it had reduced its overall backlogs (which it describes as
“cases outside of processing times”) during FY2023 by 15%. The agency reported a record 10.9
million received filings, and 10.0 million filing completions in FY2023, among other
accomplishments.122
Figure 3. USCIS Forms Received, Approved, Denied, and Pending at Year End,
FY2013-FY2023

Source: USCIS, Number of Service-Wide Forms by Fiscal Year to Date, Quarter, and Form Status, multiple years.
To facilitate planning for its continually fluctuating annual workload, USCIS regularly projects
total application workload volume, along with associated user fees to be collected (based on
which applicants pay fees).123 USCIS makes such projections by using modeling techniques and
anticipating filing trends and events that may influence the volume of applications. Nevertheless,
the agency’s workload is influenced by factors such as shifts in U.S. immigration policy, the
economy, and international political events, all of which affect the extent to which foreign
nationals apply for immigration benefits.124
Increases in USCIS’s pending caseload over the past five years have been attributed largely to
five major factors:
1. In 2018, the Trump Administration instituted policies intended to provide greater
security and reduce the incidence of immigration fraud. These requirements
included additional questions on applications and petitions that sometimes
significantly exceeded those found on the original forms; expanded interview

122 USCIS, “Completing an Unprecedented 10 Million Immigration Cases in Fiscal Year 2023, USCIS Reduced Its
Backlog for the First Time in Over a Decade,” February 9, 2024.
123 See DHS, Office of the Inspector General, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Information Technology
Management Progress and Challenges, OIG-14-112, July 2014.
124 For example, USCIS struggled for several years to reduce a processing backlog caused by the surge in petition
volume from its relatively large FY2007 fee adjustments. For background information, see CRS Report RL34040, U.S.
Citizenship and Immigration Services’ Immigration Fees and Adjudication Costs: The FY2008 Adjustments and
Historical Context (available upon request to Members of Congress and their staff).
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requirements in response to security-related executive orders; and increasing the
number of Requests for Evidence in response to insufficient information obtained
initially from forms and interviews.125 These policies extended the time USCIS
required to adjudicate certain petitions.126
2. In May 2020, USCIS implemented a hiring freeze that created sizable staffing
shortages and hindered its adjudicatory capacity following employee departures
and retirements.127
3. The COVID-19 pandemic hindered immigration benefit processing. USCIS and
DOS both took public health precautions on behalf of their employees that
restricted how many petitioners and applicants could acquire visas abroad or be
processed for immigration benefits in the United States. These precautions
included closing all in-person work for three months, and then limiting in-person
visa interviews to maintain health protocols.128
4. USCIS was unable to process all of the statutorily permitted family-based
immigrant petitions in FY2021 and FY2022, resulting in hundreds of thousands
of unused family-sponsored preference immigrant visas. By statute, these
immigrant visa numbers “fall across” to employment-based immigrants in the
following fiscal year. Capitalizing on the opportunity, created by the additional
employment-based visas, to reduce the employment-based immigrant backlog,
USCIS devoted a portion of its limited resources to process 135,000 backlogged
employment-based immigrant petitions and ensure that such visas were not
wasted before the end of the fiscal year.129 This delayed the processing of other
immigration benefits.
5. Unanticipated international events forced USCIS to shift some personnel away
from conventional applications and petitions. These events included
unprecedented numbers of asylum seekers arriving at the Southwest border,
which created a corresponding high demand for humanitarian relief. The U.S.
withdrawal from Afghanistan and the Russian invasion of Ukraine required
USCIS to prioritize humanitarian parole, asylum applications, and work
authorization applications through the Operation Allies Welcome and Uniting for
Ukraine initiatives, respectively. The Biden Administration also created a special
parole process for nationals from Venezuela that it subsequently expanded to
nationals from Cuba, Haiti, and Nicaragua.130 Finally, as noted earlier, DHS
designated more countries for TPS, thereby increasing the number of personnel
that USCIS had to devote to process initial and renewal TPS applications along
with related work and travel authorization applications.131

125 GAO, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services: Actions Needed to Address Pending Caseload, GAO-21-529,
August 18, 2021, pp. 17-20.
126 Some argued that these requirements were intended to discourage certain forms of immigration. See, for example,
Muzaffar Chishti and Jessica Bolter, “The ‘Trump Effect’ on Legal Immigration Levels: More Perception than
Reality?,” Migration Information Source, Policy Beat, November 20, 2020.
127 DHS, USCIS, Fiscal Year 2022 Progress Report, December 2022, pp. 11-13.
128 Walter Ewing, “The COVID-19 Pandemic Made USCIS Backlogs Go from Bad to Worse,” Immigration Impact,
July 6, 2021.
129 2023 USCIS Ombudsman Report, pp. 58-73.
130 DHS, USCIS, “Processes for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans,” September 20, 2023.
131 In November 2018, for example, 417,341 individuals from 10 countries had TPS. Five years later, in September
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To ease backlogs and processing burdens, USCIS has recently taken a number of actions. It has
extended the validity periods for some of its applications, such as for Employment Authorization
Documents (EADs) to reduce the need to process renewals.132 For other applications, it has
expedited renewals. In addition, the agency has established new internal metrics for certain
petitions and applications in order to guide backlog reduction efforts and gauge agency progress
on reducing case processing times.133
USCIS has also introduced new procedures, such as video interviews for certain naturalization,
asylum, and refugee cases. The agency has introduced greater flexibility for naturalization oath
ceremonies to accommodate COVID-related health concerns related to large group events and the
need for social distancing; reused certain biometrics data in cases involving the same individual;
and expanded remote work for its personnel, particularly during office closures.
134 To reduce
collecting and verifying unnecessary information, USCIS has simplified several common forms,
including the applications for employment authorization (Form I-765), adjustment of status (Form
I-485), and naturalization (Form N-400).135
Legislative proposals addressing USCIS processing backlogs typically involve supplemental
appropriations. For example, the Assisting Seekers in Pursuit of Integration and Rapid
Employment (ASPIRE) Act (H.R. 4309/ S. 2175) in the 118th Congress would appropriate $2
billion to the agency, of which at least 75% would need to be spent to hire personnel.
Digitization and Customer Service
USCIS continues to process many benefits using paper-based forms, an operating system long
considered outmoded, inefficient, and costly.136 As of August 2022, paper filings accounted for
four-fifths (81%) of all application and petition receipt volume.137 According to DHS’s Inspector
General, the lack of progress in digitizing USCIS forms has impeded USCIS from operating more
cost-effectively, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic.138
Paper files impose a considerable storage burden to USCIS. The agency was storing roughly 80
million paper A-Files (case files for each immigration benefit request) in more than 150 locations
as of August 2022.139 USCIS also held 2.6 million paper files that were pending adjudication.140
Although inefficient to store and move, USCIS maintains that DOJ continues to mandate them
over concerns that any litigation in EOIR’s immigration courts may require original documents.141

2023, those figures had increased to 697,530 individuals from 16 countries. See CRS Report RS20844, Temporary
Protected Status and Deferred Enforced Departure (version from March 29, 2019) and CRS Report RS20844,
Temporary Protected Status and Deferred Enforced Departure (version from December 11, 2023).
132 USCIS Ombudsman, “USCIS Is Now Issuing Certain EADs With Longer Validity Periods,” February 11, 2022.
133 DHS, USCIS, “USCIS Announces New Actions to Reduce Backlogs, Expand Premium Processing, and Provide
Relief to Work Permit Holders,” March 29, 2022.
134 DHS-OIG Report 2021, p. 5.
135 DHS, USCIS, Fiscal Year 2022 Progress Report, December 2022, p. 8.
136 USCIS was electronically processing 17 of the 102 types of benefits it processes as of May 2021. See DHS-OIG,
Continued Reliance on Manual Processing Slowed USCIS’ Benefits Delivery during the COVID-19 Pandemic, OIG-
22-12, December 28, 2021.
137 DHS, USCIS, Tammy M. Meckley, Associate Director, and Brian J. Broderick, Acting Chief, IIMD, “USCIS
Enterprise Digitization Strategy,” briefing to congressional staff, August 15, 2022.
138 DHS-OIG Report 2021.
139 Ibid.
140 Ibid.
141 Ibid.
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In addition, key administrative functions related to petitions and applications, such as requests for
evidence, form receipt notices, and form approval notices, are still sent by USCIS through U.S.
Postal Service mail. This imposes personnel and mailing costs on the agency, additional waiting
times for petitioners and applicants, and uncertainty over lost mail. Some observers propose
incorporating these three basic administrative functions into applicants’ and petitioners’ online
accounts that are already used to monitor cases.142
USCIS’s efforts to transition from a paper-based system to an online customer account system
began in 2007,143 although concerted efforts to improve the agency’s efficiency through greater IT
use had occurred earlier.144 In 2012, USCIS launched its Electric Immigration System (ELIS) to
serve as a public-facing platform allowing customers to submit forms online and agency
personnel to adjudicate benefits electronically.145 By 2017, the agency had changed its strategy,
using ELIS solely for internal use as a platform to access different legacy IT systems for
information and adjudication.146
In FY2018, USCIS began accepting large numbers of benefit filings online through myUSCIS, the
agency’s current online customer platform.147 As of the start of FY2022, USCIS reported more
than 8 million persons had created unique myUSCIS accounts.148 USCIS recently reported that it
processed roughly 1.2 million online filings in FY2020, nearly double the figure for FY2018.149
USCIS can now accept electronic filing for 17 of its forms, including the following:
• N-400, Application for Naturalization
• I-90, Application to Replace Permanent Resident Card
• I-130, Petition for Alien Relative
• I-539, Application to Extend/Change Nonimmigrant Status
• I-589 Application for Asylum and Withholding of Removal
• I-765 Application for Employment Authorization
• I-821 Application for Temporary Protected Status
• I-821D Consideration of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA)150
In FY2021, USCIS reported that it possessed the capacity to process over half of its workload via
“end-to-end electronic processing,” the desired end state for operational efficiency (Table 2).151

142 See, for example, Daniel Di Martino, Reducing the Immigration Backlog, Manhattan Institute, December 2022.
143 DHS, USCIS, USCIS Transformation Program: Concept of Operations, Version 1.5, March 28, 2007.
144 See, for example, DHS Office of Inspector General, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services’ Progress in
Modernizing Information Technology, OIG-07-11, November 2006.
145 DHS, USCIS, “USCIS Launches Online Immigration System, USCIS ELIS,” May 22, 2012.
146 DHS, “Privacy Impact Assessment for the USCIS Electronic Immigration System (USCIS ELIS), December 3,
2018.
147 DHS-OIG Report 2021, p. 15. This platform allows individuals and employers to file applications and petitions,
submit filing fees, monitor their cases, view notices, upload documents in response to requests for evidence (RFEs),
and correspond with the agency. DHS, USCIS, “Benefits of a USCIS Online Account,” December 10, 2020.
148 DHS, Annual Report 2022 Citizenship and Immigration Services Ombudsman, June 30, 2022 (hereinafter, “2022
USCIS Ombudsman Report”), p. 65.
149 DHS, USCIS, Section 4103 Plan Pursuant to the Emergency Stopgap USCIS Stabilization Act—Fiscal Year 2021
Report to Congress, September 7, 2021.
150 USCIS, “Forms Available to File Online,” January 16, 2024.
151 According to USCIS, “End-to-end electronic processing means USCIS can electronically intake submitted
applications, petitions and requests for benefits, accept payments electronically, complete the adjudication process from
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USCIS maintains a goal of offering end-to-end online filing and processing for all immigration
forms.152 The agency also seeks to selectively digitize a portion of its collection of 80 million
paper A-files representing completed cases that can be largely archived. According to USCIS,
meeting these goals will require a continued effort towards digitization, including dedicated
funding.153 Pressures to fulfill other mandates could jeopardize these plans.154
Table 2. Status of End-to-End Electronic Processing by USCIS Line of Business
As of September 2021
Percentage
of Total Case
Percentage
Percentage
Workload
of Total Case
Processed
Processed
Line of Business
Workload
Electronically Electronically
Citizenship: naturalization
8%
100%
8%
Humanitarian: refugee, asylum, parole, TPS, deferred action
24%
67%
16%
Immigrant: LPRs, adjustments of status, immigrant investors
47%
62%
29%
Nonimmigrant: visitor, student, and nonimmigrant workers
21%
17%
4%
TOTAL
100%
—
57%
Source: DHS, USCIS, Section 4103 Plan Pursuant to the Emergency Stopgap USCIS Stabilization Act—Fiscal Year
2021 Report to Congress, September 7, 2021, p. 4.
Notes: “Percentage of Total Case Workload Processed Electronically” is computed by multiplying the
“Percentage of Total Case Workload” by the “Percentage Processed Electronically.” TPS is temporary protected
status.
In March 2023, USCIS established its first virtual service center to handle applications with some
of the longest processing backlogs.155 These include U visa applications (Form I-918); petitions
for status under the Violence Against Women Act (Form I-360); provisional waivers of the
“unlawful presence” bar for green card petitioners (Form I-601A); and family reunification
petitions for the families of asylum grantees (Form I-730). With an initial staffing of 150
personnel, USCIS expects the center to be fully operational by the fall of 2024.156
USCIS Fraud Detection and Admissibility
When adjudicating petitions and applications, USCIS must not only confirm that foreign
nationals are eligible for the immigration benefits sought but also prevent immigration fraud and

start to finish electronically, and correspond with customers electronically.” DHS, USCIS, Section 4103 Plan Pursuant
to the Emergency Stopgap USCIS Stabilization Act—Fiscal Year 2021 Report to Congress, September 7, 2021, p. 3.
152 In September 2021, USCIS reportedly submitted a $371 million plan to Congress for achieving this goal by the end
of FY2026. See DHS, Annual Report 2022 Citizenship and Immigration Services Ombudsman, June 30, 2022, p. 62.
Congress has not funded this plan.
153 USCIS, Tammy M. Meckley, Associate Director and Brian J. Broderick, Acting Chief, IIMD, “USCIS Enterprise
Digitization Strategy,” briefing to congressional staff, August 15, 2022.
154 In FY2020, for example, USCIS cut its Office of Information Technology’s budget by one-third ($118 million) in
response to declining revenues during the COVID-19 pandemic. DHS-OIG report, p. 14.
155 DHS, USCIS, “Overview of the New Humanitarian, Adjustment, Removing Conditions and Travel Documents
(HART) Service Center,” March 30, 2023.
156 Dara Lind, “New USCIS Center Is Good News For Some Of Its Worst Backlog Victims,” Immigration Impact,
April 5, 2023.
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public safety threats.157 USCIS has broad authority to conduct background, identity, and security
checks on individuals seeking immigration benefits.158 Although its Office of Fraud Detection and
National Security (FDNS) staff work with all USCIS components, most of their work centers on
the adjudicative directorates of Field Operations; Service Center Operations; and Refugee,
Asylum and International Operations.159
Immigration fraud has two facets. Document fraud involves counterfeiting, selling, and/or using
identity documents, alien registration documents and stamps, employment authorizations,
passports, visas, and other documents for the purpose of evading immigration laws.160 Benefit and
qualification fraud encompasses the willful misrepresentation of material facts to qualify for
immigration benefits in the absence of lawful eligibility for those benefits. Examples of benefit
fraud include entering into a sham marriage in order to claim to be the spouse of a U.S. citizen,
omitting a disqualifying criminal conviction from a petition in order to become an LPR, or falsely
claiming to have been living in the United States continuously in order to meet naturalization
residence requirements. Immigration fraud can be seen as a continuum of overlapping events or
offenses, because people may commit document fraud in order to commit benefit fraud.
In 2004, USCIS established the FDNS Directorate in order to identify systemic fraud in the
immigration process, detect national security and public safety threats from foreign nationals, and
form partnerships with law enforcement entities.161 The FDNS Directorate operates the FDNS
Data System (FDNS-DS), which records and tracks its investigative activity. FDNS-DS also
“manages immigration inquiries, investigative referrals, law enforcement requests, and case
determinations involving benefit fraud, criminal activity, public safety, and national security
concerns.”162
In FY2023, the FDNS budget of $264 million represented 4.7% of the IEFA enacted budget of
$5.6 billion.163 In that year, USCIS processed 160,400 fraud detection referrals, or 1.6% of
USCIS’s form volume (10.0 million) processed that year.164 Of those referrals, 8.5% involved
alleged national security or public safety cases, and 22.2% involved alleged fraud leads or
cases.165
USCIS refers suspected benefit fraud cases to ICE as requests for investigations and suspends the
adjudication of benefits for those cases while they are with ICE. USCIS allows ICE up to 60 days

157 For background information, see CRS In Focus IF11410, Immigration-Related Criminal Offenses.
158 DHS has stated: “DHS may control alien entry and departure and inspect aliens under sections 215(a) and 235 of the
INA (8 U.S.C. §1185, §1225). Aliens may be required to provide fingerprints, photographs, or other biometrics upon
arrival in, or departure from, the United States, and select classes of aliens may be required to provide information at
any time. See, e.g., INA §214, §215(a), §235(a), §262(a), §263(a), §264(c), (8 U.S.C. §1184, §1185(a), §1225(a),
§1302(a), §1303(a), §1304(c)); 8 U.S.C. §1365b.” See DHS, “Collection of Biometric Data From Aliens Upon Entry to
and Departure From the United States,” 85 Federal Register, 74162-74194, November 19, 2020.
159 GAO, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services: Additional Actions Needed to Manage Fraud Risks, GAO-22-
105328, September 19, 2022, p. 6.
160 INA §274C, 8 U.S.C. §1324c allows for civil penalties for persons who commit fraud to meet an INA requirement
or acquire an immigration benefit. Additionally, a civil penalty under Section 274C is a separate ground for
inadmissibility and deportation.
161 DHS, Privacy Impact Assessment for the Fraud Detection and National Security Directorate, DHS/USCIS/PIA-
013-01, December 16, 2014.
162 DHS, “Privacy Act of 1974; United States Citizenship and Immigration Services; Fraud Detection and National
Security Data System (FDNS-DS) System of Records,” 73 Federal Register 48231-48234, August 18, 2008.
163 DHS, USCIS, Budget Overview Fiscal Year 2025 Congressional Justification, p. CIS-IEFA-9.
164 Ibid, p. CIS-IEFA-31; and DHS, USCIS, Number of Service-wide Forms By Quarter, Form Status, and Processing
Time July 1, 2023 - September 30, 2023, November 2023.
165 DHS, USCIS, Budget Overview Fiscal Year 2025 Congressional Justification, p. CIS-IEFA-31.
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to decide if a criminal investigation is warranted. If ICE does not pursue a criminal investigation
within 60 days, USCIS initiates an administrative review process to determine if the benefit
should be denied and the alien should be placed in removal proceedings.
In 2009, USCIS initiated the Administrative Site Visit and Verification Program as an additional
way to verify information from certain visa petitions, including special immigrant religious
workers petitions, H-1B nonimmigrant temporary visas, L-1 nonimmigrant intracompany
transferee executive or manager visas, and EB-5 immigrant investor program visas.166 As part of
this effort, FDNS officials conduct compliance reviews, which can involve unannounced site
visits, information collection, and interviews at places of employment.167 USCIS notes that
participation by petitioners and beneficiaries is voluntary but strongly encouraged. Some
observers have criticized this program, arguing that the Homeland Security Act of 2002 that
created USCIS expressly prohibits the agency from engaging in immigration-related investigation
and enforcement activities.168
During the Trump Administration, USCIS increased its vetting of immigration benefits to detect
fraud. Critics of this policy contended that the increased vetting substantially increased FDNS
spending and contributed to the agency’s caseload backlog but did not alter approval rates for the
scrutinized benefits.169 Proponents contend that such increased vetting is worth the administrative
slowdown because it reduces the likelihood of significant public safety threats.170
USCIS fraud prevention activities have received attention from GAO. In 2019, it suggested
improvements to detecting fraud in the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) self-petitioner
program.171 In 2022, GAO issued an assessment of FDNS activities from FY2016 through
FY2021.172 It noted that COVID-19 pandemic-related budget constraints and personnel
challenges (see the “Recent Processing Backlogs” section) resulted in declining numbers of
immigration benefit fraud cases (where fraud is detected and referred internally for further
investigation) and reduced agency capacity to conduct residential site visits, a critical element for
collecting fraud-related evidence. Case completion times doubled over this period for similar
reasons. GAO recommendations emphasized staff planning, data entry guidance, regular
assessments, and the need for risk-based evaluations of FDNS effectiveness.

166 DHS, USCIS, “Administrative Site Visit and Verification Program,” March 6, 2023.
167 Similarly, the Targeted Site Visit and Verification Program implemented in 2017 conducted site visits based on
fraud risk within family-based and employment-based immigration classifications but was discontinued in 2020.
168 See, for example, Angelo A. Paparelli, “USCIS’s Fraud Detection and National Security Directorate: Less
Legitimate Than Inspector Clouseau, But Without the Savoir Faire,” AILA Law Journal, vol. 1 (2019), pp. 57 et seq.
According to the author, in 2003 then-DHS Secretary Tom Ridge delegated authority to USCIS to engage in
investigative activities, even though the Homeland Security Act of 2002 expressly prohibits such a reallocation of
immigration duties.
169 See, for example, Sarah Pierce and Doris Meissner, “USCIS Budget Implosion Owes to Far More than the
Pandemic,” Migration Policy Institute, June 2020; and Randy Capps and Carlos Echeverría-Estrada, A Rockier Road to
U.S. Citizenship? Findings of a Survey on Changing Naturalization Procedures, Migration Policy Institute, July 2020.
170 See, for example, Mark Krikorian, Todd Bensman, Robert Law, and Phillip Linderman, “Panel Transcript: A New
Database of Vetting Failures,” Center for Immigration Studies, March 11, 2023.
171 GAO, Immigration Benefits: Additional Actions Needed to Address Fraud Risks in Program for Foreign National
Victims of Domestic Abuse, GAO-19-676, September 30, 2019.
172 GAO, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services: Additional Actions Needed to Manage Fraud Risks, GAO-22-
105328, September 19, 2022.
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Executive Action and Accountability to Congress
USCIS’s budgetary structure and its relative independence from congressional control has
received congressional attention within the past decade. In November 2014, President Obama
issued an executive action173 that, among other provisions, expanded the 2012 DACA program.174
Some in Congress opposed these deferred action programs; however, they possessed few options
for halting them using the annual appropriations process. The executive action highlighted
challenges Congress faces if it wishes to exert control over an agency whose funding is mostly
independent of the annual appropriations process. If Congress wanted 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 the prohibition of user fees for certain purposes, it
would need to enact legislation.175
Concluding Observations
Since its creation in 2002, USCIS has relied almost entirely on user fee revenue for its operations.
In most years, Congress has appropriated funds only for USCIS’s E-Verify and Citizenship Grants
programs, and provided additional funding in some years for special projects and, more recently,
alleviating processing backlogs.
As noted above, while some observers laud the application of user fees that effectively transfer
the cost of running USCIS from U.S. taxpayers to recipients of immigration benefits, 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.
While user fees provide steady revenue funding for ongoing operations, USCIS’s financial
structure faces more challenges when confronted with surges in the demand for non-fee
immigration benefits or costs of new initiatives that may not have been anticipated when fees
were set. Similar challenges occur during periods of prolonged decreases in petition and
application filings, as occurred during the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency. Adjusting fees is
time-consuming and often contentious, limiting USCIS’s ability to adjust quickly to changing
circumstances. Similarly, the COVID-19 pandemic revealed the existing system’s inability to
provide the same level of service for fee paying applicants during periods of declining
applications and fee revenue.176 USCIS responses to declining applications and fee revenue

173 For background information, see CRS Report R43852, The President’s Immigration Accountability Executive
Action of November 20, 2014: Overview and Issues.
174 The executive action also created a new Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents
(DAPA) program that would have granted protection from removal, and work authorization, for three years to certain
unauthorized aliens. Had the expansion of DACA and creation of DAPA been implemented, applicants would have
been required to submit petitions and pay user fees that purportedly would have paid for the cost of administering the
programs. However, both programs were halted in federal courts. For background information, see archived CRS
Insight IN10233, USCIS Funding and Accountability to Congress (available upon request to Members of Congress and
their staff); archived CRS Report R43852, The President’s Immigration Accountability Executive Action of November
20, 2014: Overview and Issues; and Muzaffar Chishti and Faye Hipsman, “Supreme Court DAPA Ruling a Blow to
Obama Administration, Moves Immigration Back to Political Realm,” Migration Policy Institute, June 29, 2016.
175 See, for example, the Use Spending for Congressional Immigration Supervision (USCIS) Act (H.R. 591) from the
115th Congress; and the Immigration Slush Fund Elimination Act of 2015 (H.R. 2825) and Ensuring Congressional
Oversight of Immigration Act (H.R. 3302), both from the 114th Congress.
176 Doris Meissner and Ruth Ellen Wasem, Toward a Better Immigration System: Fixing Immigration Governance at
the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Migration Policy Institute, October 2021, p. 28.
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included shifting personnel among different responsibilities and relying on a substantial carryover
balance.
USCIS can face significant fiscal challenges during times of international crisis and other
situations that suddenly cause many individuals to seek humanitarian-related immigration
benefits. Unlike other services, processing such benefits generate little or no fee revenue for
USCIS. In past fee schedules, processing costs for humanitarian-related immigration benefits
were implicitly recouped through the fees established for other immigration benefits.177 In its
2024 final rule, USCIS addressed this issue explicitly by assessing sponsors of employment-
based immigrants—considered more able to pay among those seeking immigration benefits—an
Asylum Program Fee in addition to their regular petition-related fees. While some commentators
have questioned the fairness of this approach,178 the fees reflect the challenge that USCIS faces
when distributing the cost of unreimbursed humanitarian services across its fee-paying petitioners
and applicants.179
Humanitarian-related benefits often represent the beginning of ongoing service demand from
foreign nationals seeking both additional benefits (e.g., re-parole, employment authorization) and
more permanent immigration status. Some assert that persons receiving humanitarian parole will
submit multiple applications and petitions to USCIS in a concerted effort to obtain more stable
status to remain in the United States.180 Groups initially seeking benefits may seem relatively
manageable in light of USCIS’s overall annual processing volume, but related and ancillary
immigration benefits, as well as customer service inquiries and other non-adjudicative tasks,
amplify the impact for USCIS. The recent increase of migrant arrivals at the Southwest border,
for example, represents individuals at the early stages of seeking some form of permanent status,
and some could be expected to submit additional applications to stabilize their status and provide
them with an opportunity to remain in the United States.
Some proposed solutions address agency funding. For example, to address the structural issue of
relying mostly on fee revenue, some observers have proposed establishing a line of credit with the
U.S. Treasury for funding the hiring of agency personnel to address specific issues such as
processing backlogs.181 Others argue that market-based approaches such as expanding Premium
Processing are the most effective way to reduce the processing backlog and make immigration
benefit waiting times comparable to those of other advanced economies.182 Other proposals
address adjudication procedures. Some contend, for example, that the adjudication of renewals of
certain petitions or applications with especially high approval rates are unnecessary and merit

177 USCIS’s 2010 final fee rule was not intended to recover the cost of adjudicating asylum, refugee, and military
naturalization benefits, which the agency assumed would be covered by appropriations. That budget request was not
fulfilled, and USCIS was then required to fund these program costs itself. USCIS 2016 Final Fee Rule, p. 73293.
178 USCIS 2024 Final Fee Rule, p. 6282.
179 For alternative perspectives on allocating the burden of USCIS’s costs, see Elizabeth Jacobs, “The Policy Decisions
Embedded in the New USCIS Fee Schedule: Subsidizing certain benefits rather than fairly recouping costs,” Center for
Immigration Studies, March 26, 2024; Dara Lind, “USCIS’ Funding Crisis Might Be Too Big for the Agency to Fix by
Itself,” Immigration Impact, American Immigration Council, January 17, 2023; and Andrew Kreighbaum,
“Immigration Fee Hikes Have Companies Questioning System Fairness,” Bloomberg Law, February 7, 2024.
180 2023 USCIS Ombudsman Report, p. 13.
181 2022 USCIS Ombudsman Report, p. 80.
182 See, for example, Daniel Di Martino, Reducing the Immigration Backlog, Manhattan Institute, December 2022.
Congressional Research Service

25

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS): Operations and Issues for Congress

automatic approval.183 Others have proposed expanding validity periods of certain immigration
benefits to reduce the frequency of renewals.184
Some observers argue that implementing different immigration policies would free up agency
resources to address the current processing backlogs.185 They contend, for example, that revising
current asylum policies to screen applicants more stringently would reduce the number of claims
whose applicants have little chance of receiving asylum. Likewise, they contend that immigration
benefits such as parole and deferred action were intended by Congress, and are so stated in the
INA, to be conferred on a case-by-case basis and not to large classes of individuals based on
meeting certain eligibility criteria. They argue that using agency resources to process such
applications increases costs and extends waiting times for other petitioners and applicants.186
USCIS processes impact a sizable population of stakeholders that includes asylum seekers,
temporary visitors, prospective permanent immigrants, and applicants for naturalization, among
others. Its ability to efficiently and expediently process millions of applications and petitions for
immigration benefits every year affects applicants and petitioners seeking to advance their careers
and personal lives, as well as related U.S. citizen family members, U.S. employers, and broader
communities.187 Many observers argue that expeditious processing of immigrant benefits is
critical for attracting skilled immigrants and maintaining U.S. economic competitiveness,188 an
argument that some in Congress have reiterated.189

183 Ibid, p. 19. Examples illustrating this excess workload include the high (97%) I-765 approval rate for recently
arrived refugees who can apply for LPR status after one year, and DACA recipients who must renew their DACA
status every two years.
184 2023 USCIS Ombudsman Report p. 20.
185 See, for example, Elizabeth Jacobs, “USCIS Publishes its Strategy for FY 2023-2026: Some suggestions to improve
an inadequate plan,” Center for Immigration Studies, February 6, 2023.
186 Ibid.
187 2022 USCIS Ombudsman Report, p. 4.
188 See, for example, Julia Gelatt, “Unblocking the U.S. Immigration System: Executive Actions to Facilitate the
Migration of Needed Workers,” Migration Policy Institute, February 2023; Jack Malde, “Beyond the AI Executive
Order: The Imperative for Congressional Action on Immigration Policy,” Bipartisan Policy Center, November 16,
2023; Federico Mandelman, Mishita Mehra, and Hewei Shen, “Skilled Immigration Frictions as a Barrier for Young
Firms,” working paper, Center for Growth and Opportunity, Utah State University, January 2024; and Daniel Di
Martino, Reducing the Immigration Backlog, Manhattan Institute, December 2022.
189 See, for example, Britain Eakin, “Lawmakers Urge DHS to Ease Employment Visa Backlog,” Law360, July 31,
2023.
Congressional Research Service

26

Appendix A. Fee and Processing Statistics
Table A-1. Fees for Selected USCIS Forms, 2005, 2007, 2010, 2016, and 2024
Percent
Change Change
USCIS
2016-
2016-
Form
Description
2005
2007
2010
2016
2024
2024
2024
G-1041
Genealogy Index Search Request
N/A
N/A
$20
$65
$30
-$35
-54%
G-1041A
Genealogy Records Request (Microfilm Copy)
N/A
N/A
$20
$65
$30
-$35
-54%
G-1041A
Genealogy Records Request (Textual Record Copy)
N/A
N/A
$35
$65
$80
$15
23%
I-90
Application to Replace Permanent Resident Card
$190
$290
$365
$455
$415
-$40
-9%
I-102
Application for Replacement/Initial Nonimmigrant Arrival-Departure Document
$160
$320
$330
$445
$560
$115
26%
I-129/
I-129CW
Petition for a Nonimmigrant Worker
$190
$320
$325
$460
$780
$320
70%
I-129F
Petition for Alien Fiancé(e)
$170
$455
$340
$535
$675
$140
26%
I-130
Petition for Alien Relative (online filing)
$190
$355
$420
$535
$625
$90
17%
I-130
Petition for Alien Relative (paper filing)
$190
$355
$420
$535
$675
$140
26%
I-131
Application for Travel Document
$170
$305
$360
$575
$630
$55
10%
I-131
Application for Refugee Travel Document (16 or older)
N/A
N/A
$135
$135
$165
$30
22%
I-131
Application for Refugee Travel Document (under 16)
N/A
N/A
$105
$105
$135
$30
29%
I-131A
Application for Travel Document (Carrier Documentation)
N/A
N/A
N/A
$575
$575
$0
0%
I-140
Immigrant Petition for Alien Worker
$195
$475
$580
$700
$715
$15
2%
I-191
Application for Relief Under Former INA Section 212(c)
$265
$545
$585
$930
$930
$0
0%
I-192
Application for Advance Permission to Enter as a Nonimmigrant (CBP)
N/A
N/A
N/A
$585
$1,100
$515
88%
I-192
Application for Advance Permission to Enter as Nonimmigrant (USCIS)
$265
$545
$585
$930
$1,100
$170
18%
I-193
Application for Waiver of Passport and/or Visa
$265
$545
$585
$585
$695
$110
19%
Application for Permission to Reapply for Admission into the U.S. After
I-212
Deportation or Removal
$265
$545
$585
$930
$1,175
$245
26%
I-290B
Notice of Appeal or Motion
$385
$585
$630
$675
$800
$125
19%
CRS-27

Percent
Change Change
USCIS
2016-
2016-
Form
Description
2005
2007
2010
2016
2024
2024
2024
I-360
Petition for Amerasian, Widow(er), or Special Immigrant
$190
$375
$405
$435
$515
$80
18%
I-485
Application to Register Permanent Residence or Adjust Status
$325
$930
$985
$1,140
$1,440
$300
26%
I-485
Application to Register Permanent Residence or Adjust Status (under the age of
(Child)
14 years)
$225
$600
$635
$750
$950
$200
27%
I-526/I-526E Immigrant Petition by Standalone/Regional Center Investor
$480
$1,435
$1,500
$3,675
$11,160
$7485
204%
I-539
Application to Extend/Change Nonimmigrant Status
$200
$300
$290
$370
$420
$50
14%
I-600/I-800
Petition to Classify Orphan as an Immediate Relative/
$545
$670
$720
$775
$920
$145
19%
Petition to Classify Convention Adoptee as an Immediate Relative
I-600A/
Application for Advance Processing of an Orphan Petition/ Application for
$545
$670
$720
$775
$920
$145
19%
I-800A
Determination of Suitability to Adopt a Child from a Convention Country
I-601
Application for Waiver of Grounds of Inadmissibility
$265
$545
$585
$930
$1,050
$120
13%
I-601A
Application for Provisional Unlawful Presence Waiver

$585
$630
$795
$165
26%
I-612
Application for Waiver of the Foreign Residence Requirement
$265
$545
$585
$930
$1,100
$170
18%
I-687
Application for Status as a Temporary Resident under INA §245A
$255
$710
$1,130
$1,130
$1,240
$110
10%
I-690
Application for Waiver of Grounds of Inadmissibility
$95
$185
$200
$715
$905
$190
27%
I-694
Notice of Appeal of Decision under INA §210 or §245A
$110
$545
$755
$890
$1,125
$235
26%
Application to Adjust Status From Temporary to Permanent Resident under INA
I-698
§245A
$180
$1,370
$1,020
$1,670
$1,670
$0
0%
I-751
Petition to Remove the Conditions on Residence
$205
$465
$505
$595
$750
$155
26%
I-765
Application for Employment Authorization
$180
$340
$380
$410
$470
$60
15%
I-800A
Supplement 3, Request for Action on Approved Form I-800A
N/A
N/A
$360
$385
$455
$70
18%
I-817
Application for Family Unity Benefits
$200
$440
$435
$600
$760
$160
27%
I-821
Application for Temporary Protected Status
$50
$50
$50
$50
$50
$0
0%
I-824
Application for Action on an Approved Application or Petition
$200
$340
$405
$465
$590
$125
27%
I-829
Petition to Remove Conditions on Investor Permanent Resident Status
$475
$2,850
$3,750
$3,750
$9,525
$5,775
154%
CRS-28

Percent
Change Change
USCIS
2016-
2016-
Form
Description
2005
2007
2010
2016
2024
2024
2024
Application for Suspension of Deportation or Special Rule Cancellation of
I-881
Removal (for individual)
$285
$285
$285
$285
$340
$55
19%
Application for Suspension of Deportation or Special Rule Cancellation of
I-881
Removal (for family)
N/A
N/A
N/A
$570
$340
-$230
-40%
I-905
Application for Authorization to Issue Certification for Health Care Workers
$230
$230
$230
$230
$230
$0
0%
I-907
Request for Premium Processing Service
$1,000
$1,000
$1,225
$1,225
$1,685
$0
0%
I-910
Application for Civil Surgeon Designation
N/A
N/A
$615
$785
$990
$205
26%
I-929
Petition for Qualifying Family Member of a U-1 Nonimmigrant
N/A
N/A
$215
$230
$0
-$230
-100%
I-941
Application for Entrepreneur Parole
N/A
N/A
N/A
$1200
$1200
$0
0%
I-956
Application for Regional Designation Center
N/A
N/A
$6,230
$17,795
$47,695
$29,900
168%
I-956G
Regional Center Annual Statement
N/A
N/A
N/A
$3,035
$4,470
$1,435
47%
N-300
Application to File Declaration of Intention
$120
$235
$250
$270
$320
$50
19%
N-336
Request for Hearing on a Decision in Naturalization Proceedings Under INA §336
$265
$605
$650
$700
$780
$80
11%
N-400
Application for Naturalization
$330
$595
$595
$640
$710
$70
11%
N-400
Application for Naturalization with Form I-942, Request for Reduced Fee
N/A
N/A
N/A
$320
$380
$60
19%
N-470
Application to Preserve Residence for Naturalization Purposes
$155
$305
$330
$355
$420
$65
18%
N-565
Application for Replacement Naturalization/Citizenship Document
$220
$380
$345
$555
$505
-$50
-9%
N-600
Application for Certificate of Citizenship
$255
$460
$600
$1,170
$1,335
$165
14%
N-600K
Application for Citizenship and Issuance of Certificate Under INA §322
$255
$460
$600
$1,170
$1,335
$165
14%
N/A
Biometrics Fee
$70
$80
$85
$85
$30
-$55
-65%
N/A
USCIS Immigrant Fee (Formerly Immigrant Visa Fee)
N/A
N/A
$165
$220
$235
$15
7%
N/A
Asylum Support Fee
N/A
N/A
N/A
N/A $0-$600

Sources: USCIS Fee Review 2023, Appendix 14; and DHS, “U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Fee Schedule and Changes to Certain Other Immigration Benefit
Request Requirements,” 89 Federal Register 6194-6400, January 31, 2024.
Notes: N/A indicates not applicable. Petition information is presented for all USCIS petitions for which processing volume data are available from the DHS sources above.
USCIS form numbers may include more than one petition variant. Fees can vary depending on whether they are filed by paper or online; fees for the latter are typically $50
lower. Other fees for businesses can vary depending on the size (number of employees) of the business.
CRS-29

Appendix B. USCIS Workload Volume
Table B-1. USCIS Application and Petition Volume, FY2013 and FY2023
(sorted from highest to lowest by forms received in FY2023)

Forms Received
Percentage Approved Pending at Year End
Form
Number
Description
FY2013
FY2023
FY2013
FY2023
FY2013
FY2023
I-765
Application for Employment Authorization
1,781,581
3,508,915
96%
88%
307,568
1,487,689
I-130
Petition for Alien Relative
813,382
924,202
92%
93%
893,123
1,933,785
N-400
Application for Naturalization
762,438
809,484
90%
90%
307,965
400,908
I-90
Application to Replace Permanent Resident Card
571,974
593,180
93%
99%
355,466
582,852
I-131
Application for Travel Document (Parole)
289,873
582,359
96%
63%
42,184
426,005
I-129
Petition for a Nonimmigrant Worker
404,520
549,001
88%
82%
84,562
80,404
I-821
Application for Temporary Protected Status
328,022
472,453
97%
95%
51,162
442,486
I-589
Application for Asylum and for Withholding of Removal
44,453
455,054
93%
73%
92,122
1,022,163
I-485
Application to Register Permanent Residence or Adjust Status (Family)
276,975
413,312
90%
90%
144,765
499,765
I-821D
Consideration of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals
432,307
333,422
98%
99%
92,417
145,938
I-140
Immigrant Petition for Alien Workers
69,921
281,977
90%
91%
11,465
61,294
I-539
Application To Extend/Change Nonimmigrant Status
148,274
240,381
87%
78%
39,969
57,840
I-870
Record of Determination/Credible Fear Worksheet
36,035
150,429
N/A
66%
3,071
12,730
I-485
Application to Register Permanent Residence or Adjust Status (Employment)
106,571
121,203
94%
91%
120,078
171,697
I-360
Petition for Amerasian, Widow(er), or Special Immigrant
20,161
111,463
78%
71%
14,143
128,396
N/A
Waivers
64,164
96,300
84%
78%
62,578
312,485
I-751
Petition to Remove Conditions on Residence
171,651
93,898
95%
95%
76,264
216,404
I-485
Application to Register Permanent Residence or Adjust Status (Cuban)
39,120
93,626
95%
93%
27,534
116,048
N-648
Medical Certification for Disability Exceptions
20,683
76,390
69%
N/A
2,504
1,364
I-131
Application for Travel Document
91,246
71,977
96%
86%
19,358
84,620
CRS-30

Forms Received
Percentage Approved Pending at Year End
Form
Number
Description
FY2013
FY2023
FY2013
FY2023
FY2013
FY2023
N-600
Application for Certificate of Citizenship
66,882
69,469
91%
91%
32,015
54,013
I-918
Petition for U Nonimmigrant Status
43,695
53,142
85%
72%
58,496
344,600
I-129F
Petition for Alien Fiancé(e)
45,360
44,275
75%
76%
18,969
45,143
I-485
Application to Register Permanent Residence or Adjust Status (Asylum)
43,785
41,525
97%
94%
17,245
57,598
I-824
Application for Action on an Approved Application or Petition
12,227
39,536
83%
92%
4,078
29,341
I-485
Application to Register Permanent Residence or Adjust Status (Other)
22,606
36,683
80%
91%
17,788
45,229
I-601A
Application for Provisional Unlawful Presence Waiver
19,085
35,386
67%
92%
12,254
133,147
N-565
Application for Replacement Naturalization/Citizenship Document
27,204
30,410
88%
92%
7,154
13,855
I-730
Refugee/Asylee Relative Petition
18,458
17,881
86%
90%
7,445
12,782
I-485
Application to Register Permanent Residence or Adjust Status (Refugee)
57,594
14,572
97%
92%
21,678
24,722
N-400
Application for Naturalization (Military)
10,185
14,218
91%
89%
4,074
7,126
I-914
Application for T Nonimmigrant Status
1,820
13,574
90%
79%
967
14,955
I-899
Record of Determination/Reasonable Fear Worksheet
7,735
10,439
N/A
41%
5,269
319
N-336
Request for Hearing on Decision in Naturalization Proceedings (Under INA 336)
4,406
5,893
58%
65%
2,740
4,336
I-924/I-956 Application For Regional Center Designation Under Immigrant Investor Program
436
3766
94%
N/A
300
6248
I-102
Application for Replacement/Initial Nonimmigrant Arrival-Departure Document
13,715
3,737
83%
66%
3,231
1,971
I-526
Immigrant Petition by Alien Investor
6,346
2,616
80%
67%
7,131
12,140
I-800
Petition to Classify Convention Adoptee as an Immediate Relative
7,880
2,248
97%
95%
907
448
I-829
Petition by Investor to Remove Conditions on Permanent Resident Status
1,217
1,170
97%
87%
1,345
9,989
I-929
Petition for Qualifying Family Member of a U-1 Nonimmigrant
397
1,150
94%
78%
261
2,153
I-600
Petition to Classify Orphan as an Immediate Relative
9,070
996
92%
79%
729
464
I-817
Application for Family Unity Benefits
2,378
291
95%
47%
690
219
I-881
Application for Suspension of Deportation (NACARA)
1,108
198
88%
N/A
2,571
647
N/A
Legalization/SAW
210
50
42%
N/A
436
359
CRS-31

Forms Received
Percentage Approved Pending at Year End
Form
Number
Description
FY2013
FY2023
FY2013
FY2023
FY2013
FY2023
I-193
Application for Waiver of Passport and/or Visa
471
22
79%
61%
638
324
N-300
Application to File Declaration of Intention
43
0
96%
N/A
21
0
N-470
Application to Preserve Residence for Naturalization Purposes
354
0
58%
N/A
408
0
N-644
Application for Posthumous Citizenship
N/A
0
N/A
N/A
N/A
N/A

TOTAL
6,898,018 10,422,273
93%
88%
2,977,138 9,007,001
Source: USCIS, Number of Service-wide Forms by Fiscal Year To- Date, Quarter, and Form Status 2013, October 2018; and USCIS, Number of Service-wide Forms By Quarter, Form
Status, and Processing Time July 1, 2023 - September 30, 2023, November 2023.
Notes: N/A indicates not applicable.

CRS-32

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS): Operations and Issues for Congress

Author Information

William A. Kandel

Specialist in Immigration Policy

Disclaimer
This document was prepared by the Congressional Research Service (CRS). CRS serves as nonpartisan
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under the direction of Congress. Information in a CRS Report should not be relied upon for purposes other
than public understanding of information that has been provided by CRS to Members of Congress in
connection with CRS’s institutional role. CRS Reports, as a work of the United States Government, are not
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Congressional Research Service
R48021 · VERSION 1 · NEW
33