Thread by @CIS_org

House Hearing, "Policy Changes and Processing Delays at USCIS" set to begin at 12pm.

@JessicaV_CIS to testify.

View live stream: cis.org/Testimony/Poli…

THREAD: Jessica Vaughan will be appearing on the second panel in the hearing. We'll be live-tweeting once she begins.

She is going to address the misleading claim that USCIS is intentionally delaying application processing times, and lay out the agency's positive new reforms.

Rep. Armstrong asks about the timing of the rule increasing the minimum investment required for EB-5, the investor visa:

"I expect it to be published relatively soon" -USCIS official

"That's pretty ambiguous. Months?" -@RepArmstrongND

"Less than that" -USCIS official

"Too often, USCIS leadership has over-emphasized swift processing at the expense of correct and fair adjudication, with disastrous results for American workers and others who suffered harm because of rushed decisions or questionable prioritization of cases." -@JessicaV_CIS

"Too many advocates have been silent on the effects of one big program that has greatly strained USCIS resources and contributed to the backlog – DACA.

The DACA program created a benefit that brought in more than 2.4 million applications to be adjudicated" -@JessicaV_CIS

"The size of the DACA program was not covered by the reduced fees they received, and legal immigrants were sidelined. Adding insult to injury, because DACA benefits were at half price, these legal immigrants had to subsidize the cost of DACA through the fees that they paid."

That concludes today's testimony. See Jessica's full statement, including her proposals for reducing USCIS's backlog, here:

cis.org/Testimony/Poli…