Enter to open, tab to navigate, enter to select
United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS)
Practical Law Glossary Item 2-505-8650 (Approx. 3 pages)
Glossary
United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS)
The federal agency responsible for all lawful immigration benefits. Its areas of responsibility include:
- Citizenship and naturalization. Authorizing or swearing in new US citizens.
- Lawful immigration benefits. Processing and administering temporary and permanent immigration petitions and applications. For more information, see:
- Verifying employment authorization. Co-managing (with the Social Security Administration) the E-Verify system and verifying the work authorization of participating employers' new employees. See Practice Notes, E-Verify for Employers: Best Practices and Mandatory E-Verify for Federal Contractors.
- Humanitarian programs. Administering programs to protect people needing shelter or aid, which includes granting:
- refugee status and asylum;
- status to battered spouses, children, and parents;
- status for human trafficking or other crime victims;
- parole of otherwise inadmissible people;
- temporary protected status; and
- assistance to those affected by natural disasters or other extreme circumstances.
- Foreign adoptions. Processing the initial step of foreign adoptions.
- Civic integration. Promoting instruction and training on the responsibilities of citizenship.
- Genealogy. Providing family historians and researchers with access to historical information and naturalization records of deceased immigrants.
USCIS was established in 2003 by segregating the benefits-granting portion of the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS). It is a unit of the Department of Homeland Security.