The U.S. Customs and Immigration Services Vermont Service Center in Essex on Friday, June 28. Photo by Glenn Russell/VTDigger
Dozens of Vermont workers at the Vermont Service Center, a federal immigration office in Essex, say that they have been facing uncertainty about the future of their jobs for months.
U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., in a letter to a top federal immigration official dated Aug. 21 that was obtained by VTDigger, expressed “deep concern” over the anticipated layoffs at the Vermont Service Center.
At the facility, contractor ITC Federal employs about 170 Vermont residents who provide back office support services to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service.
The center employees are represented by the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America. Officials at the union, which represents more than 50,000 workers nationwide, accuse the federal agency and its contractor of engaging in a pattern of union-busting, with each claiming the other has responsibility for decisions about staffing levels at the center.
In his letter, Sanders said Vermont Service Center workers, union officials and members of his staff have received “minimal, vague, and even conflicting, information” from USCIS about the layoffs, and said he was discouraged by the agency’s “trend of shifting work” from union to non-union shops.
“Workers have not received any clear indication that they will have the opportunity to continue at USCIS as federal employees, and if they cannot, they are left with few comparable careers in the state,” Sanders said in his letter.
Sanders asked USCIS to brief his office by Aug. 28 and to respond to several questions he provided by Sept. 4. Freeland Ellis, a spokesperson for Sanders, said that the agency had indicated it would follow up with the senator’s office but had not yet responded to the questions.
From Vermont to Nebraska
Staff at the Vermont Service Center have historically focused on applications related to the Violence Against Women Act, which allows noncitizens to petition for citizenship if they are victims of domestic violence, stalking, human trafficking or other sensitive circumstances. The workers also process adjudication paperwork and input immigration documents and applications into federal data systems, for example.
“Anything and everything that goes through the immigration system, up until relatively recently, they had their hands in a lot of those processes,” said Zachary Knipe, a representative with the union.
Some employees have worked at the Vermont location for years, if not decades, he said. The center at one time employed more than 400 people.
But over the past year, ITC Federal has begun transferring much of their work in processing Violence Against Women Act petitions to the Nebraska Service Center, located in a “right-to-work” state that prohibits union agreements that require employees to provide dues, union officials said, while the Vermont Service Center remains in a hiring freeze. Other work has transferred to the Texas Service Center, a non-union location.
The California Service Center, meanwhile, which once employed more than 400 employees, has seen its employment dwindle over the past several months. According to UE Local 208 representatives, 84 employees were laid off in May, and 111 in June. Fewer than 50 are currently employed there, union representatives said.
Union officials have pleaded with the company and the federal agency to provide clarity about if or when layoffs will occur at the Vermont Service Center, but those requests have been stonewalled, they said.
“USCIS refuses to communicate with us in any way directly,” Knipe said. ITC Federal, meanwhile, has “feigned ignorance” when asked about the status of potential layoffs at the Vermont center during a labor management meeting last week, he said.
“We’re petitioning and asking USCIS to speak to us with transparency,” said Joy Palm, a local steward with UE Local 208. “We want a direct, clear answer for our union members of when layoffs are expected to happen. What their broader vision is needs to be more clear to their staff.”
The uncertainty has left employees feeling demoralized, frustrated and anxious, said Aiden Mohamed, the chief steward with UE Local 208. Since November, the Vermont Service Center has lost 60 employees who have decided to seek employment elsewhere rather than wait to get laid off, according to Knipe. A dozen employees left in August alone.
“There’s a lot of people who just feel really kind of beat up and defeated,” Mohamed said.
‘Redistributing specific petition workloads’
Workers at the center also say the layoffs will hamper the federal government’s ability to process applications within an already backlogged U.S. immigration system. Sanders echoed that concern in his August letter, addressed to USCIS Director Ur Jaddou, saying the layoffs come at a time when USCIS “is already failing to provide service in a timely manner.”
Processing times for immigration visas are already overextended, Sanders wrote, with I-485 petitions related to T visas for victims of human trafficking taking 38 months to process, and applications for U visas — for victims of crime who aid law enforcement — taking 34 months.
“We pride ourselves on this work because it saves lives, and that’s what keeps folks going is knowing our work here directly saves lives,” Palm said. “But at the same time, we’re being told to continue this level of dedication to this very important work, but you will be laid off. It’s very disheartening.”
Sanders said that he was not only concerned about the impact the layoffs could have on workers, their families and the economy, but also how USCIS has approached the layoffs.
In responses to questions from VTDigger, representatives from both ITC Federal and USCIS said in emailed statements that they are not directly involved in decisions to lay off workers or transfer jobs, and have said the other party is responsible for those decisions. Neither has answered multiple calls for further information over the past three months.
USCIS, in a June email, said the federal agency “does not manage the personnel of private businesses” and that those staffing decisions are determined by ITC federal.
Gil Weisbaum, a senior program manager with ITC Federal, said in an emailed statement in June that the agency would not be providing any comment on the layoff concerns.
But in series of emails accidentally sent to VTDigger, Weisbaum and human resources managers with the company wrote in a draft statement that the company said it hoped to clarify that USCIS “is redistributing specific petition workloads from its California and Vermont Service Centers as modernization to the immigration process occurs.”
“The Service Centers receiving redistributed workloads are well staffed, equipped, and prepared to absorb incoming work,” the statement reads. “Although we are under a hiring freeze at the Vermont Service Center, we have not received notification to lay off employees.”
The company did not respond to follow-up questions about what work redistributions would mean for Vermont employees or which agency is responsible for deciding layoffs.
Union representatives said the tactics used by both agencies amounts to union-busting tactics.
“Their line has been, ‘We don’t want to traffic in non-verifiable information,’ which is code for, ‘We’re going to pretend we don’t know anything until USCIS gives us the green light to move forward with the next phase,’” Knipe said. “They’re obviously aware, and have been aware that some form of this was the plan for years now, but it’s been a consistent pattern that we don’t know specifically what’s happening, how many people are affected.”
Knipe said the union is open to the idea of USCIS providing employees a pathway to federal employment — working directly with USCIS rather than a contractor. But that, he said, would require more clarity on the situation.
“If there’s going to be a transition to federalizing more of this work, we don’t oppose that, but, again, right now we’ve lost hundreds of people in California,” he said. “We don’t expect things to play out any differently in Vermont.”
Read the story on VTDigger here: Employees at large federal contractor in Essex fear layoffs.