Federal oversight of immigration began in 1891, when Congress created the first Office of Immigration in the Treasury Department.
As immigration grew over the following decades, so did the duties of federal immigration employees. By 1906, lawmakers voted to reform the nation’s pathway to citizenship, and the Bureau of Immigration added oversight of naturalization to its responsibilities.
The next major transformation came in 1933, during the Great Depression, when the president ordered the consolidation of federal immigration and naturalization functions into the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS). INS oversaw the immigration process, enforcement, and border patrol activities for 70 years until Congress passed the Homeland Security Act of 2002.
On March 1, 2003, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services assumed responsibility for the immigration service functions of the federal government. USCIS was founded to enhance the security and efficiency of national immigration services by focusing exclusively on the administration of benefit applications. The Homeland Security Act created Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection to oversee immigration enforcement and border security.
Most immigrants and their families today are familiar with the A-File system. A-Files are used to document noncitizens’ interactions with USCIS, Customs and Border Protection, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. They include all an individual’s official immigration and naturalization records and are identified by a unique A-Number. A-Files are central to our agency’s daily operations and play a key role in adjudicating immigration benefits and supporting enforcement actions. Today, USCIS maintains millions of A-Files, both in paper and digital format.
March 29, 2023In January 2023, USCIS released a redesigned Permanent Resident Card or “Green Card.” This design contains state-of-the-art technology, including holographic images and optically variable ink. Visually, this Green Card retains much of the previous version’s design (PDF, 1.69 MB), which also featured a red, white, and blue flag on a green background.