USCIS
 The
USCIS, or the United States Citizen and Immigration Service, is a department
within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The USCIS was created by the
Homeland Security Act of 2002, and was formerly the benefit and service
functions of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS). The USCIS
consists of approximately 15,000 employees and 250 field offices around the
world.
The USCIS officially came into fruition on March 1, 2003 when the INS was
disbanded, and services formerly handled by the INS transitioned into the USCIS.
Funding for the USCIS is provided almost entirely by the processing
fees that
are required when processing most forms and petitions. As of April 21, 2008
Jonathan “Jack” Scharfen is serving as the Acting Director of the USCIS,
replacing Emilio T. Gonzalez, Ph.D, the former director of the agency. Mr.
Scharfen was formerly the Deputy Director of the USCIS and was responsible for
managing the daily operations of the United States Citizen and Immigration
Service. The USCIS includes The Office of Citizenship, which is within the
Department of Homeland Security. This branch of the USCIS disseminates
information about the responsibilities of US
citizenship and educational materials relating to U.S. history and civic
culture.
The USCIS has a stated mission which includes:
- Promote national security
- Improve customer service
li>Avoid a backlog of immigration cases
- Work towards developing solutions to immigration problems brought to their attention by the public, special interest groups, government agencies and Congress
Functions of the USCIS include the processing and adjudication of all forms and materials relating to immigration and naturalization. More specifically, responsibilities of the USCIS include:
- Adjudications of immigrant visa petitions
- Adjudications of naturalization petitions
- Administration of immigration services and benefits
- Adjudications of asylum and refugee claims
- Issuing employment authorization documents (EAD)
- Adjudications of petitions for nonimmigrant temporary workers (H-1B, O-1, etc.)
- Granting lawful permanent resident status
- Granting citizenship
The USCIS also handles all other adjudications performed by former INS, including the adjudications performed at USCIS service centers. USCIS oversees the programs that administer immigrant service benefits such as foreign student
authorization, asylum and refugee status, inter-country
adoptions, family and
employment related immigration, employment authorization, and the replacement
immigration documents. The USCIS does not handle immigration enforcement, which
is carried out by U.S Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
In recent news, the USCIS reported that there is a three year backlog in
naturalization applications due to a surge in applications. From May – July
2007, the USCIS received 737,223 applications, which is more than 3 times the
number the agency normally receives. This increase also coincided with the
January 2007 announcement that the USCIS would raise the processing fees for the
adult naturalization form (N-400). As a result of the surge,
the applications received in the summer of 2007 would reportedly take 16-18
months to process, compared with the normal 7 month time frame for applications
previously filed. Some speculate that the surge in applications can be
attributed to the immigration debate, charged political climate and upcoming
Presidential elections. The USCIS responded to the surge by increasing staffing
as well as agency hours.
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