What is the USCIS?
Answer
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services
Explanation
USCIS stands for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. It is the federal agency within the Department of Homeland Security responsible for the administration of immigration benefits, including naturalization, lawful permanent residence (the green card), employment authorization, refugee and asylum applications, and various other immigration-related benefits.
USCIS was created by the Homeland Security Act of 2002 (Public Law 107-296), which restructured the federal government's immigration functions following the September 11, 2001 attacks. Before 2003, the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), housed within the Department of Justice, handled both immigration benefits and immigration enforcement. The Homeland Security Act split those functions across three new agencies: USCIS, which handles benefits (formerly the benefits side of INS), U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which handles interior enforcement and removal, and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), which handles inspections at the border and at ports of entry. USCIS officially began operations on March 1, 2003.
The agency is headed by a Director appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate. USCIS operates through a national headquarters in Washington, D.C., five regional offices, three service centers (Nebraska, Texas, and Vermont service centers, plus the National Benefits Center), 88 field offices and approximately 130 Application Support Centers across the United States, plus international field offices in major embassies and consulates. The agency adjudicates approximately 8 to 10 million applications and petitions per year, including about 800,000 to 1 million naturalization applications.
USCIS is funded almost entirely by user fees collected from applicants and petitioners, not by congressional appropriations; the agency periodically updates its fee schedule through formal rulemaking, most recently in the Final Rule on Fee Schedule effective April 1, 2024. The USCIS website at uscis.gov is the primary public-facing resource, providing forms, instructions, fee information, processing time estimates, study materials for the citizenship test, and case status tracking. The USCIS Contact Center at 800-375-5283 provides telephone support.
Why this matters for your test
Knowing that USCIS is the federal agency handling naturalization helps applicants navigate the right office, website, and contact channels for their case.
USCIS, ICE, and CBP each handle different aspects of immigration, and confusing them is a common source of frustration and misdirected questions.
Source: USCIS Application Guide (2025)
