Budget, Planning and Performance

USCIS Strategic Plan Goals

• Strengthen the U.S. Legal Immigration System: Ensure that immigration policies, regulations, strategies, processes, and communications support a strong legal immigration system with integrity that promotes integration, inclusion, and citizenship;
• Invest in Our Workforce: Attract, recruit, train, and retain a diverse, flexible, and resilient workforce that drives high-quality organizational performance; and
• Promote Effective and Efficient Management and Stewardship: Enhance organizational capability for efficient and effective use, management, and sharing of key resources entrusted to the agency, and to evaluate and balance competing demands and priorities to serve the agency’s mission.

USCIS funding comes primarily from fees we charge applicants or petitioners requesting immigration or naturalization benefits. These fee collections fund the cost of fairly and efficiently adjudicating immigration benefit requests. Fees we collect are deposited into the Immigration Examinations Fee Account (IEFA). The IEFA was created by Congress in 1988, establishing the authority to recover the full cost of immigration benefit processing. This account comprises approximately 94% percent of USCIS' total FY 2024 spending authority.

In accordance with the Chief Financial Officers Act of 1990 (CFO Act), 31 U.S.C. 901-03, and Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Circular A-25, USCIS biennially reviews the non-statutory fees deposited into the IEFA. If necessary, DHS proposes fee adjustments to ensure full cost recovery. ¹The remaining budget authority comes from three other mandatory fee accounts and appropriated funding for the E-Verify program.

¹ USCIS's last Fee Schedule was published on Jan. 31, 2024, and resulted from the FY 2022/2023 IEFA fee review. See https://www.regulations.gov/docket/USCIS-2021-0010

• FY17 Report to Congress Statement of Financial Condition
• FY18 Report to Congress Statement of Financial Condition
• FY19 Report to Congress Statement of Financial Condition
• FY20 Report to Congress Statement of Financial Condition
• FY21 Report to Congress Statement of Financial Condition
• FY22 Report to Congress Statement of Financial Condition
• FY23 Report to Congress Statement of Financial Condition

A Learning Agenda is a roadmap that guides an organization’s learning and knowledge generation efforts. It is a set of questions that outlines the key knowledge gaps and research needs of an organization or program, and how these gaps will be addressed. It is a tool that helps organizations systematically plan and prioritize their research and evaluation efforts to support evidence-based decision-making.

For USCIS, the FYs 2023-2026 Learning Agenda serves as a strategic tool to help the agency achieve its mission of securing America’s promise as a nation of immigrants. The document is focused on answering priority questions that align with the priorities and goals of USCIS published in the FYs 2023-2026 Strategic Plan. These questions can be investigated through a range of evidence-building activities such as program evaluations, performance measurement, policy analysis, economic analysis, and others.

The Annual Evaluation Plan describes a subset, designated “significant,” of USCIS’ evaluation work for a given fiscal year:

• USCIS FY 2025 Annual Evaluation Plan
• USCIS FY 2024 Annual Evaluation Plan