In May 2020, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), the agency within the Department of Homeland Security that processes visa and naturalization applications, warned Congress that it was on the brink of serious budget trouble. The agency is funded almost entirely by the fees it collects from applicants, which plummeted under the Trump administration.
With legal migration and naturalizations now inching toward pre-pandemic levels, USCIS has proposed solving its cash problems by hiking fees for nearly every category of immigrant. USCIS Director Ur M. Jaddou said the fee increases would help improve the agency's "customer service operations" and manage "the incoming workload." But the agency's proposal ignores the reality that its dysfunction is a result of bureaucratic bloat, not lack of revenue.
