USCIRF's principal responsibilities are to review the facts and circumstances of violations of religious freedom internationally and to make policy recommendations to the President, the Secretary of State, and the Congress.

It was given several extensions by Congress, but would have expired at 5:00 pm on Friday, December 16, 2011, had it not been reauthorized for a seven-year term (until 2018), on the morning of the 16th.

[4][5] In 2016, the U.S. Congress passed and President Barack Obama signed the Frank R. Wolf International Religious Freedom Act, which amended IRFA in various ways, including adding a category of designation for non-state actors.

[8] Past Commissioners[19] include: Nury Turkel, Frank Wolf, Sharon Kleinbaum, Tom Reese, S.J., Khizr Khan, Tony Perkins, David Saperstein,[20] Preeta D. Bansal, Gayle Conelly Manchin (Chair),[21] Gary Bauer, John Hanford, Khaled Abou El Fadl, Charles J. Chaput, Michael K. Young, Firuz Kazemzadeh, Shirin R. Tahir-Kheli, John R. Bolton, Elliot Abrams, Felice D. Gaer, Azizah Y. al-Hibri, Leonard Leo, Richard Land,[22] Tenzin Dorjee (Chair),[23] and Kristina Arriaga de Bucholz.

Additionally, USCIRF recommended that Algeria, Azerbaijan, the Central African Republic, Egypt, Indonesia, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Turkey, and Uzbekistan be included on the State Department's Special Watch List.

It also accused USCIRF of indirectly justifying murder of Swami Lakshamananda, a Hindu cleric and social activist.

For example, Mounir Azmi, a member of the Coptic Community Council, said that despite problems for Copts, the visit was a "vile campaign against Egypt" and would be unhelpful.

They have pointed out potential conflicts of interest involving reported grant monies Seiple, or a non-profit organization connected to Seiple, reportedly received from officials at the U.S. Department of State to apparently seek to minimize grossly increased religious persecution and widespread human rights violations by the Lao government and the Lao People's Army.

[35] In 2007, Central Asia and foreign affairs experts S. Frederick Starr, Brenda Shaffer, and Svante Cornell accused USCIRF of championing the rights of groups that aspire to impose religious coercion on others in the name of religious freedom in the Central Asian states of Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan.

It further stated that USIRF policy was often perceived as an attack on religion, cultural imperialism, or a front for American missionaries.

[41] The organizations such as GLAAD, Hindu American Foundation, atheist and humanist groups, and others questioned the credibility of Perkins, citing his stance against non-Christians and LGBTQ people.

[42] The Southern Poverty Law Center also chastised Perkins for far-right Christian views, his anti-LGBT views, his associations with the Ku Klux Klan and other white supremacist groups, terming his evangelical organization, the Family Research Council, a "hate group".