Laid off from ITC Federal.

What ITC Federal layoffs have meant for employees

If your ITC Federal job ended in one of the 2024 or 2025 reductions on the USCIS contract, USCIS has said where the date came from. Its October 2024 reply to Sen. Bernie Sanders says a USCIS contracting officer formally told ITC Federal in writing when each reduction took effect. That's more concrete than the public argument at the time, when union officials told VTDigger that the agency and the company each said the other was responsible for staffing decisions. By USCIS's account, then, the timing of those cuts was set on the agency's side of the contract, while the notices to workers and to the states were ITC Federal's to send.

Which names went on which date was a separate question, and the union had bargained over it. The threat of layoffs was already hanging over 2023 talks, UE's September 2023 story says, because USCIS had announced a multi-year plan to automate much of the work. The three-year agreements that followed kept seniority as the sole factor in layoffs, expanded bumping rights and raised the recall period from 12 to 24 months. By the last Lincoln notice, the open question had narrowed to timing. The treasurer of Local 808, which represented 180 of the workers on that notice, told Nebraska Public Media that workers knew the contract was ending and the only question was the pace.

USCIS's explanation is the end of paper, with filing moving online and what's left of paper intake going to lockboxes. The union that represented workers in California, Nebraska and Vermont calls the cuts union-busting. A Local 808 officer told KLIN in December 2024 that the jobs were going to lockbox sites under a J.P. Morgan contract, non-union, with lower pay and worse benefits. If a lockbox job is on your list, that's a union officer's 2024 description and not a pay scale, so the posting's own numbers would settle it.

Notice totals here are an imperfect stand-in for who actually left, for reasons built into how they were written. Nebraska's December 2024 letter counts positions, and its job list marks some at half a position, so its total isn't a head count. The same letter gave affected employees bumping rights, letting them displace more junior employees, so the person who ended up leaving might be someone whose own position was never on the list, and under the union's seniority rule that person would be the more junior one. If a notice total doesn't match what you saw at your site, the way the notice was counted may explain it.

USCIS's hiring effort for these workers ran through fairs in the fall of 2024. Its letter puts them in Essex Junction and Tustin, California, in September, with Lincoln and Irving to follow in October, and says USCIS would use Direct Hire Authority for selections among referred, qualified applicants. In California, the last of the seven notices had already been filed by the day of the Tustin fair. Lincoln's picture came from the union side. KLIN reported that workers there could apply for their same jobs inside USCIS, and the Local 808 officer said a single job fair was held, with a ticket system that ran out in minutes. The letter describes a plan and the officer describes one site's experience of it, and those aren't the same measure.

How long ITC Federal was the employer depends on the site. UE says the company had employed Lincoln's Local 808 members since 2020, while Vermont and California workers came onto its contract effective February 1, 2023, so long service at those two centers could mean only a short time on ITC Federal's payroll. Our unemployment pages for California, Nebraska, Vermont and Texas cover the four states where these notices went.

A sourced history of ITC Federal layoffs

• September 2025, Lincoln and Essex Junction notices

  ITC Federal's September 30 letter expected permanent separations on November 30 for 192 positions, the remainder of its Lincoln staff. Our tracker shows 60 at Essex Junction that day.

• December 2024, Lincoln and Essex Junction notices

  ITC Federal's December 3 letter put 141.5 Lincoln positions on a January 31, 2025 separation date, with bumping rights. In Essex, a union representative told VTDigger the layoffs amounted to nearly half of the 170 workers there.

• January to September 2024, seven California notices

  Our tracker shows seven California notices, one in January and six from April to September, for 485 jobs. California's WARN report for the year through June logs the January-to-June notices as permanent layoffs at a Laguna Niguel address. A union representative told VTDigger nobody was working there as of November 15.

• January 2023, Irving notice under a former name

  Our tracker shows Information Technology Coalition Inc. giving Texas notice for 370 Irving jobs, dated January 5 with a January 31 layoff date. It began doing business as ITC Federal in a February 2023 rebrand.

What to do if you're laid off from ITC Federal

• File for unemployment in the state where you worked. Benefits run from your filing date, and severance usually doesn't block you. ITC Federal's biggest hubs: California, Nebraska, Vermont, Texas. Somewhere else? Every state is here.
• Apply for financial and hardship assistance. Unemployment supplements income, but food benefits, health coverage and utility help are often available as well. Here's some of what ITC Federal's hub states run: California, Nebraska, Vermont, Texas, and every other state is here.
• Mind the health insurance window. Losing coverage opens a 60-day special enrollment period, and an ACA plan usually beats unsubsidized COBRA. Compare your options before the employer coverage lapses, and read how the COBRA clocks run if you are weighing it seriously.
• Get your real runway number. Severance plus savings divided by reality. The calculator takes five minutes.
• Know which clocks are already running. Severance review windows, COBRA election, visa grace periods, and 401(k) rollovers all run on federal deadlines that started at termination. All five deadlines are here.