Federal employees with USCIS are among DOGE layoffs

Federal agencies are seeing mass layoffs this week amid an effort from the Trump administration-crafted Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE. That includes Citizenship and Immigration Services, or USCIS, which processes immigration and asylum applications.

About 1,000 asylum officers work under USCIS and make decisions about whether the thousands of people seeking asylum in the U.S. are allowed to move forward with their cases.

Michael Knowles is the vice president of the National CIS Council 119, which represents about 14,500 USCIS employees. He says his union’s initial estimate shows about 45 people were laid off this month. Those who spoke to him came from different offices but all say that around 1 a.m. on Feb. 15, they received identical termination letters dated Feb. 14.

“The thing that jumped out to us is [the line]: ‘Unfortunately, the agency finds that you are not fit for continued employment because your ability, knowledge and skills do not fit the agency's current needs and your performance has not been adequate to justify further employment by the agency,’” Knowles said of the letter’s content.

Like at other agencies, Knowles said employees fired from USCIS were on probationary periods, which he says last a year or two for most positions. He says asylum officers or other USCIS employees are sometimes fired if issues arise during those periods. But he says many terminated this time had never received that criticism. Some were veterans of the agency who were simply in new positions.

“What's quite different here is these letters were not issued by the individuals’ office directors, they were issued by the chief human capital officer for the whole agency. I've never seen that before,” Knowles said. “Usually when an individual doesn't make probation, they've been struggling, maybe they failed training, maybe they got a poor performance review, maybe they got in trouble — they've been counseled before and they get called into their boss, in person, for a meeting, and given a letter saying, ‘for whatever reasons, we're letting you go.’”

USCIS announced a processing backlog for asylum claims had reached a crisis level during the first Trump administration, in 2018. By the end of 2023, the agency had more than 786,000 pending claims — a backlog the Office of Inspector General said had occurred because "USCIS did not have sufficient funding, staffing, and planning to complete its affirmative asylum caseload."

Knowles says the agency has spent the last few years trying to increase its workforce to deal with mounting immigration backlogs.

"They went all out to hire up because there’s an enormous need for talent, and they hired smart competent people through a competitive process,” he said. “They've shown they're capable through their previous employment to become immigration officers, adjudicators, economists, analysts, asylum officers, refugee officers — these are all jobs that one needs considerable knowledge, skills and experience to do before you even get hired. And none of the employees that I've talked to were ever told that they're having performance problems.”

USCIS has around 20,000 employees and is mostly fee-funded by immigrants applying for things like green cards, work visas and asylum.

Knowles says the agency has told his union there are roughly 1,700 probationary employees across USCIS and 45 were fired during the Feb. 14 round of layoffs — including support staff, adjudications officers and other employees. None were asylum officers, but Knowles says they continue to monitor possible future actions and are considering other efforts, like joining class action lawsuits.

EDITOR'S NOTE: The headline and story have been updated after the union was able to obtain the official number of fired employees and their roles.