USCIS maintains 22 field offices in Latin America, the Caribbean, Europe, Africa and Asia, according to an official website. The agency already has closed its field office in Cuba. | AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee Immigration U.S. set to close international immigration offices U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services plans to close all its international field offices, according to three people familiar with the decision. The offices — which are located in embassies and consulates around the world — handle everything from immigration applications and fraud detection. In addition, the offices provide expertise to other U.S. government agencies and partner with foreign governments. While President Donald Trump frequently highlights his opposition to illegal immigration, his administration also has taken steps to make the legal immigration process more difficult. The latest move could affect everyone from members of the U.S. military applying for citizenship to foreigners seeking to join their relatives in the U.S., according to those familiar with the plan. USCIS Director Francis Cissna said in an email to staff that the agency was in preliminary discussions to transfer the international workload to domestic offices and the State Department. He said the shift in resources would allow USCIS to focus on clearing immigration backlogs in the U.S. The naturalization application backlog stood at 738,148 cases on September 30, a 16 percent increase over the level just before Trump took office. USCIS spokeswoman Jessica Collins said in a written statement that the agency would work closely with the State Department and the Homeland Security Department “to ensure no interruption … to affected applicants and petitioners.” Morning Shift newsletter Get the latest on employment and immigration, every weekday morning — in your inbox. Email Sign Up By signing up you agree to receive email newsletters or updates from POLITICO and you agree to our privacy policy and terms of service. You can unsubscribe at any time and you can contact us here. This sign-up form is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. USCIS currently maintains 23 field offices in Latin America, the Caribbean, Europe, Africa and Asia, according to an official website. The agency already has closed its field office in Cuba and previously planned to close an office in Moscow on March 29. The agency said Tuesday that roughly 70 USCIS employees work in the offices abroad. If the plans to shutter them are finalized, the employees will return to the United States. The agency noted that the State Department leads processing for visa applications by foreigners in foreign countries. But the webpage for the USCIS International Operations division states that its officers “are responsible for adjudicating a wide variety of petitions and applications filed internationally, providing information services, and issuing travel documents to people in a wide variety of circumstances.“ These duties include assisting U.S. citizens who wish to bring relatives to the United States, handling cases of people who claim a fear of persecution in their home countries, and aiding U.S. citizens who seek to adopt a child internationally. USCIS argued Tuesday that operations would not be disrupted if it closes its international outposts, but simply shift to domestic processing or be handled by U.S. staff during “circuit rides“ overseas. This article tagged under: Immigration<doc-sep>WASHINGTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) - President Donald Trump’s administration is planning to close the U.S. immigration agency’s overseas locations, according to current and former officials and an internal memo, in a move affecting offices that currently handle family visa requests, international adoptions and other tasks. FILE PHOTO: U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Director L. Francis Cissna speaks about the Bangladeshi suspect in Monday’s attempted suicide bombing in New York during a press briefing at the White House in Washington, U.S., December 12, 2017. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque/File Photo The move is the latest from an administration that has worked to limit both legal and illegal immigration since Trump took office in January 2017, including cuts to the U.S. refugee program and heightened vetting of U.S. visa applications. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) Director Francis Cissna, in an email message to agency employees, announced plans for closure of the international field offices. The plans called for shifting those duties to U.S.-based agency offices and American consulates and embassies abroad. The agency, part of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, currently operates 23 offices overseas, scattered across Latin America, Europe and Asia, according to the agency’s website. The agency offices carry out services including: helping American citizens who want to bring relatives to the United States; processing refugee applications; enabling overseas citizenship applications; and assisting Americans who want to adopt foreign children, according to its website. The international offices can also process naturalizations of U.S. military service members who are not already U.S. citizens. USCIS officers abroad also look for fraud in visa applications and provide technical immigration advice to other U.S. government officials. On Monday, senior USCIS officials told employees within its Refugee Asylum and International Operations division that the agency had decided to close its overseas posts, one current and one former official said. The closures will happen over the next year and some of the offices’ tasks likely will be shifted to the State Department, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “Change can be difficult and can cause consternation,” Cissna wrote, but said the agency is committed to implementing “as smooth a transition as possible.” In places where USCIS does not have overseas posts, the State Department already carries out some of its duties, such as replacing green cards for American legal permanent residents who have lost theirs. International USCIS staff provide support to U.S. officials who travel abroad to interview refugee applicants. ‘PULLING UP THE DRAWBRIDGE’ The administration has put in place new barriers for asylum seekers, barred citizens of several Muslim-majority countries from traveling to the United States and pushed new rules that would make it harder for low-income immigrants to become legal permanent American residents. Advocates expressed concern that the move to close down overseas offices would create additional roadbocks for vulnerable applicants. “They are doing an across-the-board effort to dismantle the capacity of this country to process refugees and immigrants legally,” said Mark Hetfield, president of the U.S. refugee assistance organization HIAS. “It is not consistent with what President Trump said in the State of the Union (address), which is that he wants immigrants to come here, that he wants them to come here legally.” “This is another example of the administration pulling up the drawbridge,” Hetfield added. Leon Rodriguez, USCIS director under Trump’s predecessor Barack Obama, said the shift may have been aimed at cutting costs and that most duties now performed internationally by USCIS likely will be delegated to U.S. consulates abroad. “Symbolically it is retreating from an international presence,” Rodriguez said. Agency spokeswoman Jessica Collins said by email: “As we have internally shared, USCIS is in preliminary discussions to consider shifting its international USCIS office workloads to USCIS domestic offices in the United States and, where practicable, to U.S. embassies and consulates abroad.” “The goal of any such shift would be to maximize USCIS resources that could then be reallocated, in part, to backlog reduction efforts,” Collins said. The agency will work closely with the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security “to ensure no interruption in the provision of immigration services to affected applicants and petitioners,” Collins added. USCIS has in the past decided to close individual offices based on demand for its services. The agency previously announced that its Moscow field office will permanently close at the end of this month, citing a “significant decrease in workload.”<doc-sep>“I believe by doing so, we will better leverage our funds to address backlogs in the United States while also leveraging existing Department of State resources at post,” he wrote. “Change can be difficult and can cause consternation. I want to assure you we will work to make this as smooth a transition as possible for each of our USCIS staff while also ensuring that those utilizing our services may continue to do so and our agency operations continue undisrupted.”<doc-sep>
The Trump administration will reportedly shutter all 21 international offices operated by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) in a move intended to consolidate services from the Department of Homeland Security. The Washington Post reported that the decision was announced by USCIS Director L. Francis Cissna in an email to agency staffers on Tuesday, which stated that the services provided by the 21 offices would be consolidated into U.S. embassies and stateside offices. ADVERTISEMENT “I believe by doing so, we will better leverage our funds to address backlogs in the United States while also leveraging existing Department of State resources at post,” Cissna wrote, according to the Post. “Change can be difficult and can cause consternation. I want to assure you we will work to make this as smooth a transition as possible for each of our USCIS staff while also ensuring that those utilizing our services may continue to do so and our agency operations continue undisrupted," he added. A senior official at the Department of Homeland Security told the Post that the move was being implemented as a cost-cutting measure that would shift the offices' responsibilities to existing agency staffers. About 70 staffers in the offices would be reassigned as part of the decision, according to the Post. A spokeswoman for USCIS told The Hill in an emailed statement that the agency would work to ensure "no interruption" of services. “As we have internally shared, USCIS is in preliminary discussions to consider shifting its international USCIS office workloads to USCIS domestic offices in the United States and, where practicable, to U.S. embassies and consulates abroad. The goal of any such shift would be to maximize USCIS resources that could then be reallocated, in part, to backlog reduction efforts," wrote Jessica Collins. "For such a decision, USCIS will work closely with the Department of Homeland Security and with the Department of State to coordinate necessary interagency agreements to ensure no interruption in the provision of immigration services to affected applicants and petitioners.” Rep. Pramila Jayapal Pramila JayapalProgressives nearly tank House Democrats' Capitol security bill Ocasio-Cortez leading effort to block arms sale to Israel Biden spending plans hit speed bumps MORE (D-Wash.), a co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus who cut her teeth in politics as an immigration activist, reacted to the news by saying "it sounds like a really dumb idea." Jayapal added that she hadn't yet seen the proposal, but said any cut to consular visa services could have serious consequences. "We have serious consular needs around the world," she said. "As someone who came to this country on a visa for 17 years, I know what that's like to stand in a visa line." "People around the world depend on these services," added Jayapal. — Updated at 2:25 p.m.