Boundary Bay Law, 1155 N. State Street, Suite 603 98225 Bellingham, WA, US

USCIS will be furloughing approximately 2/3 of its workforce starting on August 3. This will bring visa processing at USCIS to a halt. If you have an immigration application processing at USCIS that is not approved before August 3 you can expect your processing time to increase by several months. USCIS receives 97% of its funds from processing fees collected from immigrants. The furlough is the logical result of Trump Administration policies which have increased processing... times by 70-200% prior to the COVID-19 pandemic while discouraging many of the visa types that USCIS relies on to fund its operations. USCIS cannot double the time its officers spend on each case without also increasing the processing fee. This budget crisis was predictable well over a year ago, yet the Trump Administration chose to ignore it until a furlough is unavoidable. The furlough will continue until Congress passes a bipartisan bill for emergency funding. Anyone holding out hope for a bipartisan immigration funding bill in an election year amidst record government deficits is far more optimistic than me. Thankfully Department of State's visa processing will continue. Immigration applications which have already been sent to the National Visa Center (operated by Department of State) or to a U.S. consulate abroad should continue to process normally.

Peace Arch Park will close at 8pm today (18 June 2020) to reduce the risk of COVID-19 spreading into BC.

So much of this article is dead on.