House Passes USCIS Bailout. Will the Senate?

The drama continues.  Will there be furloughs on August 30 at U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Services, halting the processing of legal immigration?  The possibility has been discussed for months.  Nicole Narea for Vox reports that the U.S. House of Representatives  passed a bill over the weekend that would avoid furloughs at USCIS.  According to the story:

“The agency plans to furlough about two-thirds of its staff on August 30. The furloughs would hamstring the agency’s ability to process immigration applications in a timely manner, potentially preventing more than 100,000 citizenship applicants from voting in November due to the processing delays.

The bill, which passed unanimously, would allow USCIS to raise certain fees associated with fast-tracked immigration applications and prevent the furloughs.

Unlike other federal agencies, USCIS receives almost no taxpayer dollars and is dependent on fees associated with filing applications for green cards, visas, work permits, US citizenship, and humanitarian benefits such as asylum. It’s not clear whether the bill will pass in the Senate, which is on recess until September. But a senator could seek unanimous consent to pass the bill at any time.” (bold added).

UPDATE (Aug. 25, 11:15 PST): “U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services today announced that the agency will avert an administrative furlough of more than 13,000 employees, scheduled to begin Aug. 30 as a result of unprecedented spending cuts and a steady increase in daily incoming revenue and receipts.”

KJ