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Emergency room nurse Azra Nazir sued the Trump admin to get decision on her citizenship that took 2yrs instead of 4 months max under law. She waited 20yrs to take the oath Friday. It's no accident thousands of potential 2020 voters are in limbo https://lat.ms/2Vs6xHd @latimes 1/
The WH says USCIS, the agency administering the U.S. legal immigration system, is bankrupt, short $1.2b, because of COVID-19. It's started sending furlough notices for up to 70% of its workforce. But it's been in process of shutting down the agency down for almost 4 yrs. 2/
USCIS is a fee-based agency; its budget almost entirely made up of fees paid by green-card holders applying to naturalize; DACA recipients renewing work permits; "nonimmigrant" temporary workers. The Trump WH has systematically targeted legal immigration, starving the agency. 3/
By one count, Trump WH has changed USCIS policy 182 times in less than 4 yrs, leading to more than $500 million in revenue lost annually, according to America’s Voice, an immigration advocacy group. 4/ https://bit.ly/2Zl3pOH
From 2017-19, citizens applying to bring family to US fell by ~30%. WH issued “wealth test” policies to reject immigrants who might or whose US citizen kids might use public benefits. Last wk WH blocked many work-based visas & doubled wait or denied asylum seekers from working 5/
In FY 2018, USCIS received more than 1 million fewer applications than the year before, leading to a $152-million drop in revenues from fees. Last year, the agency lost another $13 million. In Nov, *before the coronavirus*, the admin projected ... a $1.2b shortfall this year. 6/
Last year, agency adjudicated little over half its applications. Processing time for citizenship has doubled under Trump. Total backlog of all apps USCIS receives has grown to 5.7 million cases at the end of March, the agency’s latest statistics show. https://bit.ly/31r3Ae6 7/
At the same time, the money the agency dedicated to rooting out fraud more than doubled under Trump, to $379 million, and for vetting, nearly tripled, to $149 million, per @MigrationPolicy https://bit.ly/2YGLkvb 8/
COVID-19 *has* had big impact — world stopped travel, WH effectively closed border, "expelling" UACs & asylum seekers citing CDC order under legal challenge. But had already shuttered most USCIS international ops, & tried to end asylum & family migration, claiming "loopholes" 9/
