At the moment, it is still unclear how Congress might respond to the agency's crisis. Last week, the House Democrats passed a coronavirus relief bill worth $3 trillion, but this did not include the USCIS in the stimulus package.

According to an aide in the House Democrats, Congress is still deliberating on the bailout request sent by the USCIS.

Closure led to drop in revenues

In an interview with Fox News, an official said that the fee-based agency is experiencing a decline in their revenue. The request for aid in Congress is a one-time emergency funding to continue their operations.

Because the number of applications from immigrants are significantly reduced as a result of the pandemic, USCIS said that their funding might soon be depleted. They may not meet their payroll, unless Congress allows them to bail them out.

In the email sent by Deputy Director for Policy Joseph Edlow to the USCIS staff, it said that the unpredictable nature of the crisis affected their revenue. As of yet, there was no useful data in hand that would be able to enlighten them about the true impact of the pandemic to their income.

Most of the funds that keep the USCIS running are from immigrants who pay fees for the processing of their applications. According to Edlow, since the outbreak of COVID-19 in the United States, they have seen a significant drop of levels with application and petition receipts.

They expect that come summer, USCIS will exhaust its funding. Edlow added that intervention from Congress may allow them to meet the payroll. Otherwise, they might resort to "drastic actions" just to keep agency operations running.

Last March, the agency closed their offices in response to the declaration of the national emergency. This included the suspension of services that require operations to run in person like field and asylum offices.

Moreover, President Donald Trump placed tight reins on citizens in possession of green cards. These processes are primarily handled by the USCIS.

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Closure of the USCIS

In mid-March, the U.S. presidential office declared that arrangements with Canada were made to close borders to non-essential travel. In this vein, the Trump administration also decided to invoke emergency powers to deport to Mexico the illegal immigrants and asylum seekers at the U.S.-Mexico border. 

Since then, the United States has been tightening measures to restrict foreigners from entering. The travel ban included European countries like the U.K. and Ireland.

At the same time, the USCIS began to suspend their in-person services, which involved the Application Support Centers, from processing asylum applications and naturalization ceremonies. Emergency requests, however, were still ongoing at the time.

This effort, which was done to mitigate the spread of the coronavirus, caused more losses than expected to the agency. Primarily funded by fees, the agency dealt with forms of legal immigration and asylum cases in the United States. Any pending processes are sent rescheduled dates.