US citizenship and immigration services will close all their field offices: NPR

The US Citizenship and Immigration Services announced Tuesday that the agency was seeking to close all its field offices around the world, a decision made by the director, L. Francis Cissna.

Alex Brandon / AP

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Alex Brandon / AP

The US Citizenship and Immigration Services announced Tuesday that the agency was seeking to close all its field offices around the world, a decision made by the director, L. Francis Cissna.

Alex Brandon / AP

The Trump administration is looking to close nearly two dozen US offices of US citizenship and immigration offices around the world, which it says would save millions of dollars a year. Critics argue that closures will further slow the processing of asylum applications, family reunification applications and military citizenship applications.

USCIS spokeswoman Jessica Collins announced Tuesday that the agency was in "preliminary discussions" to delegate its international responsibilities to the state department or to its own staff in the United States . In some cases, the workload would be absorbed by US embassies and consulates abroad.

"The goal of any such change would be to maximize the resources of the USCIS that could then be reallocated, in part, to the agency's" backlog reduction ". Collins said in a statement sent to NPR.

In a cost analysis conducted last year, USCIS officials felt that a gradual removal of its international offices would save millions of dollars each year.

USCIS Field Offices currently assist asylum seekers, family reunification visas and adoptions abroad. They also review applications for parole from outside the United States for urgent humanitarian reasons and process naturalization documents for military personnel who marry foreign nationals, among other responsibilities.

Another "important function" of USCIS 'international offices is to "provide technical expertise on immigration issues to US government agencies abroad, including others." components of the Department of Homeland Security, Department of State and Department of Defense, "says the agency. his website.

In this statement, Collins downplayed the potential impact of closing the 23 field offices in 20 countries. She assured that the transition would be coordinated with the Department of Homeland Security and the State Department, "so as not to interrupt the provision of immigration services to the applicants and applicants concerned".

In addition, the agency said the US refugee program would not be affected by the fact that refugee interviews are conducted by US-based staff traveling around the world.

But Sarah Pierce, Policy Analyst at the Migration Policy Institute, said the plan would likely exacerbate the bottleneck of processing asylum applications, which has reduced the chances of seeking asylum at home. United States. She pointed out that the Trump administration had reduced the number of eligible refugee claims from 45,000 during the 2018 fiscal year to 30,000 in 2019 due to "a huge backlog outstanding asylum files ".

"USCIS has taken yet another step that slows the processing of asylum applications and customer service in general," said Pierce, adding that an increase in the backlog could fuel reduction requests ceilings of refugees.

The USCIS International Operations department employs approximately 70 people in offices around the world. Foreign nationals represent more than half of its staff working abroad and about one third of all its employees.