The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has announced a new rule requiring applicants to submit immigration benefit requests electronically if those forms have been available for online filing for at least 180 days. This shift, detailed in a rule published in the Federal Register, aims to modernize agency operations and reduce the heavy reliance on physical paper processing.
Under the new policy, USCIS will move away from its traditional reliance on Treasury Department “lockbox” facilities, which currently handle millions of pages of physical documents. In fiscal year 2025 alone, the agency processed over 14 million requests, involving approximately 453 million pages of paper. Operating this manual intake system cost the agency roughly $396 million, with an additional $10 million spent on postage.
The mandate applies to a wide array of services, including green card applications, naturalization requests, asylum claims, and employment authorization documents. USCIS officials state that electronic filing will significantly improve data security, minimize clerical errors, and enhance fraud detection capabilities by allowing for more efficient digital analysis of applicant data.
For cases where digital submission is not feasible, the agency will provide an exemption process. Applicants requesting a waiver must submit a specific form and will be subject to a $25 processing fee. Each waiver request will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis by agency officials. Furthermore, the agency has established a 60-day notice period before any specific form becomes exclusively available online, ensuring applicants have time to transition to the digital portal.