Time get that much time to speak. Number one, the reason why that is, is not anything about affirmative action. Its all because of one guy we were talking about earlier, scalia. You can you can listen to any oral argument on oyez. Org cspan 3 is live on capitol hill this morning where members of a house subcommittee are holding a hearing on u. S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Live coverage on cspan 3. Such as subcommittee meetings and hearings and so the expectation is for members and witnesses who are physically present to please wear a mask except when you are speaking. Pursuant to notice and this subcommittees rules of procedure and statement of policy for private immigration bills i call up hr 7572, a private bill for the relief of median. The chair calls the bill for the purpose of requesting an investigative report from the department of Homeland Security and the stay of removal on behalf of the named beneficiary while that report is pending. Without objection i ask unanimous consent my full statement on this bill be made a part of the record. Mr. Back, i would recognize you as the Ranking Member and a statement you will wish to make. I will introduce my statement for the record but not make a statement at this time, thank you madam chair. Thank you. I understand that mr. Nadler, the chairman of the full committee, is unable to be with us at this point. I dont know if mr. Jordan is present. If so, he would be invited to make an Opening Statement should he desire. I think mr. Jordan was also unable to be with puus. Request dhs provide the subcommittee with the departmental report on hr 7572 and stay the removal of median el mu stra. I know this request for stay of removal does not provide a final decision on the private bill. The request and stay is simply the first step in the private bill process to learn more about the case from the agency responsible. All those in favor will say yea. All those opposed will say no. In the opinion of the chair the yeas have it and the request will be made to provide the subcommittee with the departmental report on hr 7572 and stay of removal. That i believe will conchewed our subcommittee meeting on the private bill and will begin in four minutes our hearing on the oversight of u. S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. There being no further business before the subcommittee with respect to the private bill, the meeting is adjourned and we will begin the oversight hearing in four minutes. At any time. We welcome everyone to this mornings hearing on oversight of u. S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Before we begin i would like to remind members again that we have established an email address and distribution list thats dedicated to circulating exhibits, motions or other written material others might want to offer as part of our hearing today. If members would like to submit materials send them to the email address that has been previously distributed to member offices and we will circulate the materials to members and staff as quickly as we can. I would also repimind all membe that guidance from the office of attending physician states that face coverings are required for all meetings in an enclosed space such as the subcommittee hearings and its expected that individuals in the room will wear a mask except when they are speaking and i would recognize myself for an Opening Statement. Todays hearing the oversight of u. S. Citizenship and Immigration Services comes at a critical time. Since january of 2017 we have watched this administration strip away at usciss Service Oriented mission and eradicate common sense policies that improve agency efficiency. Instead, the administration has implemented countless new policies that add bureaucratic red tape, increase costs and restrict and reduce immigration channels. As is often the case today, the covid19 pandemic has exposed this miss management. Now, absent funding from congress, 13,400 u. S. Cis employees face the threat of furlough one month from now. Agency officials have po posed repaying appropriated funds by proposing a 10 surcharge on all request for immigration benefits. The agency blames its financial crisis on reduced filings during the covid pandemic. While this reduction in filings contributed to the crisis, uscis was well on its way to insolvency long before the covid19 hit our shores. Last year this subcommittee held a hearing to examine how restrictive policy and procedural changes led to record high case backlogs and processing delays. Despite large staff increases and decreases in immigration filings over the past two years, the backlog has only grown larger. A case backlog stands at a staggering 2. 5 million cases. U. S. Cis frequently points to the growing case backlog as justification to hire additional adjudicators and since 2016 the agency has added about 5,000 new employees while hiking fees to pay for the added salary costs. We observed this eight months ago when uscis proposed an additional 21 fee increase, quote, to Fund Additional staff, and, quote, perform more National Security investigavett uscis acknowledged the additional staff will not measurely improve processing times. Now uscis has proposed a 10 surcharge on top of the 21 surcharge proposed earlier to repay appropriated funds. The agency is forcing customers to not only shoulder the cost of misguided management and policy choices, but to pay even more for slower services. This really is not acceptable. Additionally, even as the uscis in filings as the cause of the administration continues to take actions to restrict immigration further driving u. S. Cis revenues into the ground. For example, on june 18, 2020, the Supreme Court ruled that administrations recession of daca was unlawful. That means the daca program that existed before the president s unlawful action was taken was reinstated. Yesterday, dhs issued a new memorandum reconsidering the daca program and shortening the permissible renewal period. Dhs instructed uscis to instruct all additional daca applications. While the future remains uncertain one thing is clear, holding new daca applications at process facilities uscis was violating the Supreme Courts judgment. Similarly high demand for immigrant visas it seems that thousands of visas will go unused this year. Chairman nadler and i first raised this issue with the administration in may, but we received no response. In fact, instead of advancing priority dates to increase adjustment of status filings the administration appears to have stifled Priority Movement to prevent such filings. Only recently after we sent a second letter did we see more movement in priority days. Unfortunately, given how late it is in the fiscal year this is likely too little too late. Perhaps that was the point. I look forward to hearing from our first witness mr. Joseph edlow, Deputy Director for policy at uscis on these and other issues and the witnesses on our second panel so that we can understand how Agency Mismanagement and the threat of furloughs has impacted immigrant communities, u. S. Businesses and uscis employees. When you consider all that the administration has done to restrict Legal Immigration over the past three and a half years, its no wonder that the uscis stands before us cat in hand asking for money to maintain current operations. The Trump Administration has been characterized by incompetence, and the catastrophic response to covid19, to mismanagement of this agency. However, i hope we can all agree that no good purpose will be served if we allow the immigration system to grind to a halt. Its my hope that todays hearing will further current negotiations by helping us to better understand how we got to where we are, where we are today and that we can find a solution that all of us can embrace. Its now my pleasure to recognize the Ranking Member of the subcommittee from colorado, for his Opening Statement. Thank you, madam chair, and madam chair, let me tell you it is a pleasure to be back in the Judiciary Committee hearing room. It feels like a home that i havent visited for a while and its nice to get back to a little sense of normality. Thank you for holding this hearing to conduct oversight of the u. S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. This subcommittee has an important oversight responsibility. Uscis has continued its important work in the face of covid19. The covid19 pandemic and the resulting Office Closures and budget shortfalls, the agency has experienced. The agency has gone out of its way to ease the process for benefit applicants wherever possible. Since march the agency has conducted over 106,500 naturalization ceremonies, approved over 87,600 applications for adjustment of status and ensured our agricultural system remains competitive by allowing more than 130,500 h2 a employees to enter the country. While delays remain these numbers show that uscis takes its mission seriously. The agency does face large challenges going forward, including the previously mentioned 1. 2 billion shortfall. The potential need to furlough up to 75 of the agencys workforce and the residual delays in benefit adjudication. However, i have confidence the agency will continue administering our nations Immigration Laws fairly and consistently no matter the circumstances. Mr. Edlow, thank you for taking the time out of your busy schedule to answer important questions about the work you are doing at uscis. I look forward to hearing the challenges and successes of uscis as well as any ways we in congress can be helpful to the agencys mission. I thank the chair and yield back. Thank you, mr. Buck. I now would like to introduce our first witness, joseph edlow, joined the u. S. Citizenship and Immigration Services in july 2019. First serving as chief counsel for the agency before transitioning to his current role as Deputy Director of policy in february of this year. Prior to this, he served as Deputy Assistant attorney general in the office of legal policy at the department of justice and assistant chief counsel at the Baltimore Field Office of immigration and custom enforcement. Mr. Edlow also worked for three years in the house of representatives, first in the office of our former colleague, raul labrador, and then as counsel for this very subcommittee. We welcome him back to the subcommittee today and look forward to his testimony. Mr. Edlow, if you would please rise, i will begin by swearing you in. Do you swear or afirm under penalty of perjury that the testimony youre about to give is true and correct to the best of your knowledge, information and belief, so help you god . I do. Let the row show the witness answered in the affirmative. Thank you be seated. Note your written statement will be entered into the record in its entirety. I ask you try to summarize your testimony in five minutes and to help you stay within that time, theres a timing light on your table. When the light switches from green to yellow, you have one minute to sum up and when the light turns red, your five minutes have expired and we ask you to try to stop at that point. You may begin. Thank you. Chairwoman lauf gren, Ranking Member buck and distinguished members of the subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to testify today. Uscis mission is to safeguard the integrity and promise of the nations lawful immigration system by efficiently and fairly adjudicating request for immigration benefits while protecting americans, securing the homeland and honoring our values. I am here today on behalf of the nearly 20,000 dedicated and hardworking professionals. It is my honor to lead them and the daytoday operations of this agency. These are difficult times for our nation and for uscis. The pandemic has affected virtually all aspects of American Life and has had a dramatic affect on uscis operation and revenue. Despite our best efforts we have been forced to issue furlough notices to nearly 70 of our employees. Without funding from congress, we will have no choice but to proceed with largescale furloughs on august 30th. As you know, uscis is unique among federal agencies and we are 97 fee funded. The fees we collect for certain petitions and applications pay for our operations, including the salaries of our workforce. Those fees cover the cost of adjudicating many immigration requests and benefits for which we do not currently collect a fee, such as asylum, refugee status, humanitarian visas, deferred action and satisfactory departure. Unlike an appropriated agency, a fee funded agency must have sufficient funding remaining on september 30 to the carry over on october 1st to begin and sustain operations for the new fiscal year. The pandemic has virtually eliminated this necessary carryover funding. Without funds from congress or a furlough, uscis will run out of money in early fiscal year 2021. We have done what we can reducing spending, instituting a hiring freeze and identifying more than 100 million liquidated obviously gagses. We began working to adjust Agency Spending as we identified our fee schedule was insufficient to recover estimated costs this fiscal year. I have spoken to many of you and your staffs about our crisis and our funding proposal to ensure that uscis continues throughout this fiscal year and start fiscal year 2021 on Strong Financial footing. Most important to me are the men and women of us cis who continue to perform our agencys Critical Mission under such uncertain circumstances in these unprecedented times. Facing a pandemic, uscis employees engaged strategies to continue limited naturalization ceremonies to prevent the spread of covid19. While our slowdown did delay taking the oath for some i am proud to report that all 110,000 of those pending oates will be completed by the end of this week. This is merely a snapshot of the work done by the talented and dedicated workforce. Starting in june we safely and effectively reopened most offices while protecting applicant and employee safety during the ongoing covid19 pandemic. At field offices with we implemented a variety of measures such as providing Hand Sanitizer at entry points, requiring facial coverings, installing fiscal barrier and markings. At asylum offices we began conducting video facilitated interviews using Available Technology including mobile devices provided by uscis to ensure that asylum officer, applicant, interpreter and representative can fully and safely participate in the interview while maintaining social distancing. As our offices resume if Person Services, uscis looks to pick up where we left off. Last year uscis naturalized an 11year high. The agency completed over 103,000 credible fear claims a record high and more than 113 increase since 2015 as well as approximately 79,000 affirmative asylum applications. The dedication and commitment of the uscis workforce is inspiring even as the financial situation in the spector of largescale furloughs have been the toughest obstacle we have faced. I look forward to doing whatever it takes in working with congress to resolve this issue. I would like to acknowledge the productive conversation i have had with witnesses set to appear on the second panel this morning. I believe we share a strong commitment to the workforce and remain confident we can Work Together to find a resolution. Thank you for the opportunity to testify today and i look forward to answering any questions you may have. Thank you, mr. Edlow. This is the time when members of the subcommittee may ask questions of our witness for five minutes each and i will begin. As youre aware except for uncapped categories such as immediate relatives, our Immigration Law provide a certain number of employment and family based immigrant visas each fiscal year. There are millions of people who have been waiting for decades until a visa is available to them. According to recent reports an estimated 5 million individuals with approved immigrant visa petitions are waiting in the immigrant visa backlog. Mr. Edlow, do you agree that the immigration and nationality act requires these visas to be issued if there is enough demand . Congresswoman, i agree that we have a duty to get as close to the immigrant visa caps that congress has set per year as we possibly can. And we are making progress this year to getting there. Obviously with the in Person Services closed for a number of months including at Application Support Centers we have not been able to move as many as we would have liked to through the process. That said, as of july 16th, we have already allocated 86. 8 of the fiscal year annual limit for employment based preference categories. Thats over 106,000 visas that have been allocated and most of that as you know, mr. Edlow, several weeks ago we were advised by dhs officials as of april 29th, approximately 126,000 family based visas and nearly 75,000 employment based visas were available and we had mr. Nadler and i had written about this and in june, mr. Nadler and i sent a followup letter to the secretaries of state and Homeland Security expressing our concern that the departments were not faithfully complying with the law to ensure full use of stat attornutorily authorize numbers for fiscal year 2020 and 2021. We copied you on the letter and asked for a response to this letter and a stafflevel briefing by july 6th, but to date, neither has been provided. Now why is that . Congresswoman, i apologize. My understanding was that you had received a response on that letter. It was not drafted by me, but i have seen t