New USCIS Data Shows Progress on Reducing Backlogs, Customer Experience, Employment-based Immigration, Naturalization, and Humanitarian Work

USCIS released the end of fiscal year (FY) 2023 data that illustrates the agency’s progress in meeting its strategic priorities. Over the past year, our workforce has successfully reduced backlogs, improved the customer experience, strengthened employment-based immigration, and addressed humanitarian needs. Below are some highlights but please read our news release for more details.

Reducing Backlogs 

• USCIS received 10.9 million filings and completed more than 10 million pending cases – both record-breaking numbers in the agency’s history. In doing so, we reduced overall backlogs by 15%. 
• The agency administered the Oath of Allegiance to more than 878,500 new U.S. citizens, including 12,000 members of the military, effectively eliminating the backlog of naturalization applications.
• The median processing time for naturalization applicants decreased from 10.5 months to 6.1 months by the end of the fiscal year, reducing waiting times for most individuals seeking U.S. citizenship. 

Improving Customer Experience 

• USCIS developed a new self-service tool for online rescheduling of biometrics appointments to reschedule over 33,000 such appointments. 
• Our new enterprise change of address capabilities enabled over 430,000 address changes to be submitted online through December 2023. This tool is expected to reduce USCIS Contact Center phone inquiries by up to 31%, or approximately 1.5 million inquiries annually. 
• We developed a new text-ahead capability for callers to our 1-800 number that gives a more predictable call-back window and reduces missed calls. 

Strengthening Immigration for Workers and Employers 

• USCIS and the Department of State issued more than 192,000 employment-based immigrant visas and, for the second-year running ensured that no available visas went unused. ·
• We increased the maximum validity period of Employment Authorization Documents (EADs) to five years for adjustment of status applicants. 
• We removed the biometrics fee and appointment requirement for applicants for a change or extension of nonimmigrant status. 
• We updated the agency’s interpretation of the Child Status Protection Act to prevent many child beneficiaries of noncitizen workers from “aging out” of child status, allowing them to seek permanent residence along with their parents. 

Fulfilling Our Humanitarian Mission 

• We established lawful pathways that allow for the safe and orderly processing of individuals into the United States through the implementation of new processes for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans (CHNV); the creation of new family reunification processes for individuals from Colombia, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, and the modernization of existing processes for Cuba and Haiti. 
• We announced the creation of our sixth service center, the Humanitarian, Adjustment, Removing Conditions, and Travel Documents (HART) Service Center, which focuses on adjudicating benefits requests filed by vulnerable populations. 
• We interviewed over 100,000 refugee applicants – more than double the amount completed in the previous fiscal year – resulting in the admission and resettlement of over 60,000 refugees. 
• We completed more than 52,000 asylum cases; this included prioritizing process of asylum cases for Afghan allies and their families. 
• We completed a record-breaking 146,000 credible fear and reasonable fear screenings of individuals expressing a fear of return after being encountered at the border. 

Looking Ahead

As a fee-funded agency, USCIS achieved all these accomplishments within the constraints of a fee schedule that was last updated in 2016. We recently announced a new fee schedule that allows USCIS to more fully recover our operating costs, reestablish and maintain timely case processing, support the development and implementation of tools that further increase our efficiency to improve the customer experience, and help prevent the accumulation of future case backlogs. We continue to call on Congress to pass the Administration’s supplemental funding request, including additional resources for USCIS to cover projected shortfalls and hire additional personnel. 

USCIS will continue to build capacity for processing historically high referrals for protection screenings at the southern border, while focusing remaining resources on the unprecedented number of pending affirmative asylum applications. USCIS will continue to increase refugee adjudications to support the target of admitting 125,000 refugees this fiscal year. 

Finally, USCIS will implement new online filing tools to enhance the customer experience, including adding organizational accounts, launching online filing of H-1B petitions on Form I-129, Petition for a Nonimmigrant Worker, and adding an additional electronic intake channel for submission of forms and evidence in PDF format. 

For more information about our end of FY 2023 progress and plans looking ahead, view our video and read more here. 

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