Federal agency furloughs likely will have a significant impact in Kansas City
The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service, a federal agency that administers the country’s immigration system, may put 13,400 employees on furlough later this summer unless it can secure emergency funding from Congress.
While the agency doesn’t provide location-specific information, the furloughs figure to have an impact in Kansas City where more than 3,000 people work for USCIS directly or through a contractor.
What’s worse for these employees is the timing of the furloughs. USCIS said furloughs would begin on Aug. 3. That’s days after federal unemployment benefits, which provide $600 a week on top of what states pay out, are set to expire absent an extension from Congress.
USCIS employs nearly 20,000 nationally, meaning the furloughs cover two-thirds of the agency’s workforce.
In May, USCIS sought $1.2 billion from Congress to keep the agency afloat. The agency does not receive a direct appropriation from Congress but is instead funded through fees on immigration applications and petitions. It said it would repay the U.S. Treasury by increasing those fees.
“Though we continue to have productive conversations with Congress, we want employees who may be furloughed to have sufficient time to prepare,” USCIS said in a statement. “Further, we are legally required to provide employees with advance written notice at least 30 calendar days prior to the effective date of an expected furlough.”
USCIS employs 3,100 workers in the Kansas City area at National Benefits Center offices in Lee’s Summit and Overland Park, as well as the National Records Center in Lee’s Summit and the agency’s field office, according to figures provided by the office of Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, D-Missouri.
About 1,000 National Benefits Center employees faced a layoff at the end of May when USCIS moved to scale down a contract with PAE, a contractor that provides employees for the center, which processes immigration paperwork, including those for international adoptions.
Cleaver then announced just prior to the layoffs that USCIS extended the PAE contract through June. It was not clear on Thursday about the status of that contract.
Representatives of the local and national chapters of the American Federation of Government Employees, the union that represents federal workers, could not be reached for comment.
USCIS has said the coronavirus pandemic and the subsequent drop in immigration applications petitions since March have resulted in deep cuts in the agency’s revenue.
“This dramatic drop in revenue has made it impossible for our agency to operate at full capacity,” USCIS said. “Without additional funding from Congress before August 3, USCIS has no choice but to administratively furlough a substantial portion of our workforce.”
A May 18 letter to union members by AFGE National Council 119 president Danielle Spooner said USCIS started the fiscal year with a $2 billion surplus and experienced a spike in applications toward the end of 2019 before the pandemic took hold in the United States.
“Yet the question remains: where did all the money go?” Spooner wrote.
This story was originally published June 26, 2020 at 5:00 AM.
