What Does The Government Shutdown Mean For Immigration Services?

President Barack Obama called for a quick end to what he calls a "completely preventable" government shutdown in a letter sent out to federal employees on Tuesday. But when the Senate and House failed to reach an agreement to fund the government's activities in the new fiscal year, those who are in the midst of immigration processes may see certain services shuttered. The National Law Review published today a list of ways in which services for immigration-related processes might be affected. While those the government has deemed "essential" for the purposes of national security will operate as normal, backlogs and delays - as well as work stoppages - are expected for just about everything else.

Immigration courts will stay open, but they'll be slowed: of the 1,339 employees with the Department of Justice's Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR), only 402 will be at work. Of those 402, 153 are attorneys. Similarly, visa processing will continue only for what the Department of State deems "life or death" emergencies.

Immigration services which don't require payments to the government will be shut down. The Department of Labor says it will halt processing permanent labor certifications, and new applications won't be accepted through the online system. The website for filings of Labor Condition Applications - which prospective employers of high-skilled foreign workers have to submit to prove that they're not underpaying the employee because they're not permanent residents - is also down. The backlog for these certifications, writes the NLR, is expected to grow each day that the government remains shut down.

According to the NLR's list, security and enforcement functions carried out by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) will continue operations at more or less normal capacity. That means that the 1,000-plus immigrants who are deported from the country on average every day are still going to be deported. The ports of entry at the border will remain operating as well - a University of California tracker of wait times at the border indicates that most locations appear to be running normally.

But a few enforcement-related services which the Department of Homeland Security considers "key" are going to be impacted. E-Verify, the Internet-based system which allows some 404,000 employers to chceck the work eligibility of prospective employees -- with some 21 million queries run through the system last fiscal year - will be unavailable, according to the DHS. Complaint lines and investigations on civil rights and civil liberties cases will also be suspended. Of the DHS's total 231,117 employees, 31,295 will be furloughed, while 199,822 will be exempted entirely.

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