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In less than 30 days, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services will start furloughing 13,400 employees – almost 70 percent of its workforce. Thousands of employees have already received notices of their looming furloughs, which would happen August 3. “If that happens, the agency would be left with a skeleton crew that will make it difficult to sustain our critical mission of administering our nation’s lawful immigration system,” Joseph Edlow, deputy director for policy at USCIS said in a statement.
Democratic and Republican congressional officials said the administration has yet to file a formal budget request for USCIS, frustrating lawmakers responsible for authorizing the funds. “It’s a moving target right now in terms of what specifically it is that we need to address in order to prevent these furloughs,” Democratic Congresswoman Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-Calif.), the chair of the House Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee.
The Trump administration insists Congress has all it needs to bail out USCIS. “The Administration has formally requested the resources necessary to keep USCIS running,” an OMB spokesperson told CBS News. But Democrats disagree. “The Trump White House is responsible for requesting supplemental funding, but all they have sent Congress is a one-page letter that provides virtually no information on the shortfall or proposed remedies,” said Evan Hollander, a spokesperson for the House appropriations panel. CBS News
In other federal immigration news…
Trump Meets with Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador
In his first foreign trip as president, Mexico’s Andrés Manuel López Obrador will travel to Washington on Tuesday to meet with President Donald Trump. The visit has unsettled many people in Mexico. Since his presidency began, Trump has constantly attacked Mexico and has since strongarmed the country into enforcing U.S. immigration policy internally. Still, López Obrador has a surprisingly friendly relationship with the Trump administration. He says the meeting is about the economy. The Associated Press
