USCIS ’s Immigration Backlogs Hit 8.8 Million

David J. BierThis post is adapted fromProcessing Backlogs in the U.S. Immigration System: Describing the Scale of the ProblemThe Department of Homeland Security ’s U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (DHS-USCIS) is the gatekeeper for the broadest array of immigration benefits, including employment authorization and applications for green cards by immigrants already in the United States (see Table below). This broad jurisdiction makes the DHS-USCIS b acklog the most important among the four departments with immigration processing authority. The DHS-USCIS backlog of pending cases has grown more than fourfold from fiscal year 2010 to FY 22—from 2 million in the second quarter of 2010 to 8.8 million in the third quarter of 2022. This 6.8 million increase represents growth from about the number of cases received in a quarter at the end of FY 10 to the number of cases received in a year in FY 22 (Figure 1).Figure 2  breaks down the DHS-USCIS backlog by broad type of benefit being sought from 2010 to 2022 (quarter 2 in each year only). Every category of immigration benefits has seen significant increases in the number of pending cases. At 2 million cases, the largest component of the backlog is family‐​b ased petitions—a backlog that has increased by 1.3 million since 2010. Employment authorization documents (EADs, or work permits) are second at 1.5 million pending cases, with asylum applicants and immigrants with pending green card applications the most common...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - Category: American Health Authors: Source Type: blogs