Eliminate the Application Backlog.

• Author: Gray, Gordon

At present, there are about 8.6 million immigration applications pending before the U.S. Customs and Immigration Service (USCIS). Of those, 5.2 million are backlogged, experiencing longer than usual processing times. As with many federal agencies, the USCIS's operations were substantially disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic; it is a public-facing agency, conducting a substantial share of its activities with members of the public and often in person.

The USCIS is also unique among government agencies in that it is almost entirely funded by user fees, mostly receipts from foreigners applying to enter or remain in the country. The agency receives about 97% of its funding through the imposition and collection of fees charged to immigration applicants. While making immigrants pay entirely for their own processing costs may seem fair, this financing model means that the agency has little to no capacity to increase resources to catch up when it falls behind, and today it is woefully behind.

Given the endemic labor shortages across the United States, this would be a good time for Congress to lend a hand. We assessed several funding and staffing scenarios that would eliminate the pending application backlog. Each scenario would require additional congressional appropriations totaling $3-$4 billion--about one quarter of 1 percent of annual federal spending--and could effectively clear the backlog in as little as two years.

Economically, a more expedient processing of immigration...