USCIS Rolls Out Enhanced Background Checks for Immigration Filings, Causing Processing Delays

The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), under a new vetting protocol rolled out in end April, requires its officials to resubmit fingerprints for pending cases to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI’s) upgraded background check system before applications can be approved. The revised checks, required for better national security, apply to a broad range of immigration filings that require biometrics, including adjustment of status applications for permanent residency, naturalisation petitions, asylum applications and employment authorisation requests. Owing to this, processing delays are being experienced, state immigration attorneys. Immigration law firms point out that the most significant change is that USCIS officers have been instructed to re-run background checks even for pending applications where biometrics were already submitted before April 27. Though USCIS has not formally announced a system-wide pause, immigration attorneys say adjudications in many categories have slowed as officers wait for updated FBI clearances. Immigration attorneys have also raised concerns that the broadened searches may lead to greater scrutiny of applicants over minor or historical interactions appearing in criminal databases, even where there was no conviction. Some immigration advocates fear the new measures could disproportionately affect immigrants from heavily scrutinised regions. The FBI’s name-check system searches multiple variations and phonetic spellings of an applicant’s name across investigative and reference files. Even indirect mentions in investigative records can trigger secondary reviews requiring manual examination by officials. The move marks the latest tightening of immigration screening under the Trump administration, which has expanded enforcement measures and increased scrutiny across legal immigration pathways.