The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services’ (USCIS) decision to reportedly layoff employees may disrupt visa processing, delay green card approvals, and hamper industries reliant on foreign talent. Industry experts said these layoffs pose a particular threat to Indian nationals, who form the largest applicant group for H-1B visas, while US industries—especially tech and healthcare—brace for a deepening talent crunch.
In a LinkedIn post, former USCIS Senior Advisor Doug Rand alleged that this week, the immigration agency’s employees received an email encouraging them to retire early or risk being terminated through an upcoming workforce reduction.
“If USCIS sheds employees, backlogs and processing times will shoot up. Members of Congress — Republicans and Democrats alike — will be inundated with calls from constituents desperate for help with languishing applications. Parents waiting to adopt a child. A US citizen waiting to bring their husband or wife home as a permanent resident. Hospitals in need of doctors. Growers in need of farmworkers. Millions of people, waiting,” he explained in the post.
According to Rand, during Covid, the USCIS saw a sharp decrease in fee revenues and instituted a hiring freeze, losing over a thousand immigration officers through attrition. In 2021, however, the agency hired thousands of new officers and support staff to enhance both processing speed and effective vetting, resulting in an elevated fee.
Blow to businesses
“By 2023, USCIS had reduced its backlog for the first time in over a decade, even while receiving a record number of applications. Whereas most people waited 8 months or more for a green card renewal in 2020, now it’s a matter of weeks,” he said.
One of the earliest effects of a potential headcount reduction would be a massive delay in processing time, elongating the already processed waiting time for visas and other applications.
Mamta Shekhawat, founder of study-abroad platform Gradding.com, shared that businesses relying on foreign talent, especially in niche industries, would experience serious challenges in hiring and keeping the skilled workforce, shattering innovation and economic development.
“USA’s healthcare system, which depends extensively on abroad-trained professionals, would also take a severe blow, augmenting current shortages and posing the risk of compromising patient care. So, the evident current suffering immigration system, struggling with a high volume of applications, would be pushed to its breaking point, creating an environment of heightened stress and uncertainty for all industries and stakeholders. This breakdown of USCIS capacity would not only affect those planning to immigrate but also those who rely on immigrants for their services,” Shekhawat explained.
‘Global mobility bottleneck’
Data from XIPHIAS Immigration shows that Indian nationals are the largest beneficiaries of the H-1B visa programme, accounting for over 70 per cent of all issued H-1B visas in recent years. Categories like F-1 for students and EB-2/EB-3 for employment-based green cards are also heavily relied upon. With any USCIS workforce downsizing threatening the timely processing of these applications, for Indian professionals and students, the consequences are two-fold — longer waiting time and increased anxiety over visa status extensions and renewals.
“The US is already grappling with historic visa backlogs — over 4 million in family-sponsored and employment-based categories — and a drastic cut in manpower could worsen wait times exponentially. From green card processing to H-1B adjudications, the machinery risks grinding to a near halt. This isn’t just an American administrative issue anymore, but a global mobility bottleneck. For India, which contributes a significant chunk of skilled migrants, this could mean prolonged career uncertainty, delayed family reunifications, and possible redirection of talent flows to other welcoming destinations like Canada or Australia,” said Varun Singh, MD of XIPHIAS Immigration.
The impact of these delays will be felt in other sectors leaning on foreign talent — primarily tech and academia. Indian professionals are embedded in the US IT and STEM ecosystem, holding roles like software engineers, data scientists, cybersecurity experts, and researchers. A slowdown in visa adjudication could lead to a talent crunch, disrupting project timelines, innovation cycles, and even global competitiveness of American firms.
“The irony is stark — in an age where the US is battling AI competition with China, it risks throttling its own tech workforce pipeline due to internal administrative gridlock. The potential layoff of USCIS staff, if not reversed or compensated for digitally, could make America less agile in a world that’s already moving fast,” noted Singh.