The US Migration Service closes all offices abroad

АThe Trump administration is preparing to close all USCIS offices, which now number 21. This can slow down the processing of applications for a family visa, the adoption of foreigners and an application for citizenship for the military, writes The Washington Post.

Photo: dhs.gov

USCIS Director Francis Cissna, on Tuesday, 12 March, wrote to employees in an e-mail that he was working to transfer the responsibilities that employees perform in offices around the world to internal offices in the US, embassies and consulates of the State Department.

If the State Department agrees, the agency in the coming months will move to close its overseas offices “in order to maximize the use of the agency’s limited resources.

“I believe that through this we will be better able to use our tools to solve problems with the backlog [document processing – ed. ForumDaily] in the United States, while leveraging existing State Department resources on the ground,” he wrote. “I want to assure you that we will work to make this transition as smooth as possible for each of our USCIS employees, while ensuring that those who use our services continue to do so and our agencies continue to work without interruption."

The decision to close will affect offices in New Delhi, Port-au-Prince, Rome and many other cities where the agency has emergency offices, smooth out delays in immigration petitions and provide direct information in foreign languages. Overseas USCIS offices also investigate cases of fraud.

This decision is made against the background of how the Trump administration insists on tightening the country's immigration control and a gradual transition to merit-based migration, rather than based on family reunification.

A senior official of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that this was primarily a cost-saving measure that would assign responsibilities to State Department and DHS employees working abroad.

According to DHS, more than half of USCIS’s foreign employees are foreign nationals, and employees who perform many of the candidate checks will probably continue to do so under the supervision of the State Department.

In his address to the staff, Cissna said that in the coming weeks he will bring together regional, district and field offices in the United States "to streamline management structures, balance resources and improve the overall performance of our missions and service delivery."

Recall in February USCIS announced the closure of its office in Moscow.

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