Immigration to Go Paperless

[ThaitoUSA 15]

Immigration to Go Paperless

Agency Plans Electronic Overhaul of Case-Management System

By Spencer S. Hsu

Washington Post Staff Writer

Friday, November 7, 2008; A17

The Bush administration has launched a major overhaul of the nation's immigration services agency, selecting an industry consortium led by IBM to reinvent how the government handles about 7 million applications each year for visas, citizenship and approval to work in the United States, officials announced yesterday.

If successful, the five-year, $500 million effort to convert U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services' case-management system from paper-based to electronic could reduce backlogs and processing delays by at least 20 percent, and possibly more than 50 percent, people close to the project said. Those problems have long frustrated new Americans and other immigrants.

The new system would allow government agencies, from the Border Patrol to the FBI to the Labor Department, to access immigration records faster and more accurately. In combination with initiatives to link digital fingerprint scans to unique identification numbers, it would create a lifelong digital record for applicants. It also would eliminate the need for time- and labor-intensive filing and refiling of paper forms, which are stored at 200 locations in 70 million manila file folders.

Known internally as the transformation initiative, the long-awaited and much-delayed effort is considered a cornerstone of any broader effort to fix an immigration system considered one of the most broken bureaucracies in the federal government.

If Congress were to overhaul immigration laws, by creating a guest-worker program or allowing illegal immigrants to gain legal status, for example, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) expects it would have to make even greater changes. The agency suggested to potential contractors during last year's immigration debate that $3.5 billion worth of work might be required, officials said.

The case-management system "is going to transform the way USCIS and its predecessors have done business for the last 50 years, and the success or failure of this venture will determine the effectiveness" of any future immigration overhaul, said Prakash Khatri, a homeland security consultant at KPK Global Solutions. Khatri served as the immigration agency's ombudsman for the Department of Homeland Security from 2003 through February of this year.

Acting USCIS Director Jonathan "Jock" Scharfen announced that International Business Machines Corp. was selected over rivals CSC and Accenture to serve as a "solutions architect" for the $2.6 billion-a-year agency, which employs 10,700 government workers and 8,000 contractors at 200 locations nationwide.

The contract, awarded this week and the largest federal homeland security bid on the market, includes a $14.5 million, 90-day assessment period with options over five years worth $491.1 million.

The agency in a statement called the initial task order "just one of the building blocks of USCIS' overall transformation plan." That plan is being funded with the help of a summer 2007 fee increase on immigrant applicants, which freed up roughly $650 million over five years, said Scharfen's acting deputy, Mike Aytes.

Government investigators have reported that the agency's pre-computer-age paper filing system incurs $100 million a year in archiving, storage, retrieval and shipping costs; has led to the loss or misplacement of more than 100,000 files; and has contributed to backlogs and delays for millions of cases.

Modernization efforts, proposed in 1999, have been delayed by funding problems, inertia, post-Sept. 11 security demands and reorganization triggered by the creation of the Homeland Security Department. The department's inspector general in 2007 faulted the agency for being "entrenched in a cycle of continual planning, with little progress."

Analysts said USCIS moved carefully in the past two years to structure the project to avoid flaws that derailed other major Homeland Security contracts, including SBInet, a Customs and Border Protection effort with Boeing to build a "virtual" border fence using surveillance technology, and Deepwater, the Coast Guard's massive fleet-replacement effort with Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman.

"We're proud of 2008 and the milestones we've met," Scharfen said in a statement. "But, much work remains."

[Beautiful_years 0]

Thats a good one

[Stinky Monkey 1]

I can see filing fee's going up again

[Nagishkaw 510]

Me too.

[KimandRuss 0]

Being a true 'geek' I often wondered what the process might be like if everything was handled electronically. As much as i'd liek that, I can't even being to imagine the security measures that would have to be taken to keep all of this information private. Not to mention the overseas part of this process.

I can see people hacking into very personal information.

I suppose in time we'll see much of the process done electronically but I also think we'll have a way to go before that happens.

[sara..... 371]

Being a true 'geek' I often wondered what the process might be like if everything was handled electronically. As much as i'd liek that, I can't even being to imagine the security measures that would have to be taken to keep all of this information private. Not to mention the overseas part of this process.

I can see people hacking into very personal information.

I suppose in time we'll see much of the process done electronically but I also think we'll have a way to go before that happens.

im sorry but i personally want them to pay attention the the paper files they have at this point selfish yup i admit it freely

[sara..... 371]

Being a true 'geek' I often wondered what the process might be like if everything was handled electronically. As much as i'd liek that, I can't even being to imagine the security measures that would have to be taken to keep all of this information private. Not to mention the overseas part of this process.

I can see people hacking into very personal information.

I suppose in time we'll see much of the process done electronically but I also think we'll have a way to go before that happens.

im sorry but i personally want them to pay attention the the paper files they have at this point selfish yup i admit it freely

also i have to wonder if they cant keep track of physical files and work on them in an orderly fashion i can just hear the complaints when its all electronic........im sorry there is no record of ur petition.......or cris is down and everything got wiped out i can also see worms being planted into the system that mess it up........government sites have been hit in the past just imagine a person that was denied visa for what ever reason that had the ability to disturb the system........when ever there is a high security system in place there will be people that may not even have a reason to hack the system do it just to see if they can........call me old fashion but until they can get the paper files done the right way i dont see this as improvement

[KimandRuss 0]

You have every right to be selfish Sara!

[rebeccajo 14]

http://www.uscis.gov/portal/site/uscis/men...00045f3d6a1RCRD

Fact Sheet: USCIS Makes Major Strides During 2008

At U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), fiscal year 2008 brought unprecedented progress towards reducing naturalization processing times, improving refugee and asylum processing, increasing adjudications officer hiring and training, and reducing the backlog of FBI name checks.

USCIS has reduced processing times for applications and petitions thanks in large part to the increase of trained adjudications officers hired as a result of the implementation of last year’s new fee structure. USCIS surpassed annual targets for completed asylum applications and supported the highest level of refugee admissions in the last seven fiscal years. The agency worked closely with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to reduce name checks pending for more than one year and is on track to eliminate by early next year those pending more than six months.

Processing Times for Naturalization Applications

During FY08, USCIS completed an unprecedented 1,171,140 naturalization applications, an increase of more than 422,000 processed applications a year earlier. Production for FY08 increased by 56 percent over FY2007, and surpassed original naturalization projections by 233,140 applications.

USCIS continues to make steady progress in reducing the number of pending naturalization applications received during FY07. The processing of naturalization applications is currently averaging 9-10 months, down from the 16-18 months projected after the surge of applications in late FY07. The agency will reduce processing times to five months by the end of FY09.

Hiring and Training

USCIS has made tremendous progress in hiring new employees, particularly adjudications officers, who have directly contributed to reducing the agency’s pending caseload.

USCIS hired 2,058 employees, a 24 percent increase of the USCIS workforce from FY07.

1,600 of USCIS’ new employees have become adjudications officers.

Throughout the year, hundreds of USCIS employees have conducted naturalization interviews on weekends, after normal business hours and traveled to additional locations to further reduce processing times.

USCIS designed an extensive training program and course curricula at the USCIS Training Academy to be both flexible and adaptable to the training and educational needs of USCIS employees. The Academy also placed an unprecedented number of newly-hired adjudications officers through a restructured BASIC training program that allows officers to exit the academy ‘job-ready’, thus making an immediate impact on pending caseloads.

The personnel enhancements allow USCIS to more efficiently process applications, provide better customer service, and improve security against fraud and possible threats to our homeland.

FBI Name Checks

During FY08, USCIS worked with the FBI to effectively eliminate all pending name checks more than two years old and reduced the number of cases waiting for a name check final result from almost 350,000 in late FY07 to less than 37,000. The FBI is on target to eliminate all name checks pending more than six months by early 2009.

Refugee and Asylum Processing

During FY08, the USCIS Refugee Affairs Division, in coordination with USCIS overseas district offices, deployed officers to 71 countries to interview more than 100,000 refugee applicants from 59 nations. These efforts supported the admission of more than 60,000 refugees from around the world, a 25 percent increase in refugee admissions compared to FY07, and the highest level of admissions since FY01.

Since the large-scale Iraqi refugee processing was announced in February 2007, the Departments of Homeland Security and State have worked cooperatively to increase the number of Iraqi refugees admitted as part of the worldwide commitment. DHS and DOS have streamlined the process for admitting Iraqi refugees to the United States and share responsibility for initiating security checks of Iraqi refugee applicants. During FY08, the Refugee Affairs Division deployed more than 150 officers in the Middle East to interview more than 23,000 Iraqi refugee applicants. As a result of these efforts, more than 13,800 Iraqi refugees were admitted during FY08, exceeding the Administration’s goal of 12,000 admissions and establishing a robust pipeline of approved Iraqi refugee applicants for admission in FY09.

USCIS’ Asylum Division completed more than 47,000 asylum applications (120 percent of the division’s annual target). This reduced the total end of the year pending applications to a historically unprecedented level.

E-Verify

Free, safe, secure and simple to use, E-Verify is the best means available for determining employment eligibility of new hires and the validity of their Social Security Numbers. The program provides participating employers an automated Internet-based resource to verify the employment eligibility of newly hired employees. Through this process, E-Verify assists employers in maintaining a legal workforce and protects jobs for authorized U.S. workers.

More than 92,000 employers are currently using E-Verify to verify that their new hires are authorized to work in the United States.

During FY08, approximately 6.6 million employment verification queries were run (as compared to a total of 3.27 million in all of FY07).

The Department of Homeland Security’s FY09 appropriation legislation, signed into law on Sept. 30, 2008, provided $100 million to continue, expand, and improve E-Verify in FY09.

A recent study conducted by Westat, a social science research firm which monitors the effect of various changes made to the E-Verify program, found that between April and June 2008:

Approximately 96.1 percent of all cases queried through E-Verify were instantly found to be employment authorized (this is a substantial improvement from 94.2 percent);

About 99.6 percent of all work-authorized employees verified through E-Verify are verified without receiving a tentative nonconfirmation or having to take any type of corrective action;

Erroneous tentative nonconfirmations (those that were work-authorized but who received a tentative nonconfirmation) has improved from 0.5% to 0.4%. Ultimately, these mismatches are successfully resolved; and

Of all queries received, final nonconfirmations (meaning not work-authorized) are 3.5 percent; down from 5.3 percent.

USCIS Transformation

USCIS is committed to making investments which will result in long-term changes to the agency’s ability to provide better, more timely customer service.

USCIS moves into 2009 with a more aggressive agenda to improve its services to customers.

The agency has awarded the Transformation Solution Architect task order to IBM, a five-year investment to improve its filing and adjudication system.

The task order is just one of the building blocks of USCIS’ overall transformation plan made possible through the implementation of last year’s new fee structure.

Future contracts that will add more building blocks to USCIS’ transformation plan include program management office support and a research and development center contract to assist in administrative and program oversight.

Edited November 8, 2008 by rebeccajo

[sara..... 371]

http://www.uscis.gov/portal/site/uscis/men...00045f3d6a1RCRD

Fact Sheet: USCIS Makes Major Strides During 2008

At U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), fiscal year 2008 brought unprecedented progress towards reducing naturalization processing times, improving refugee and asylum processing, increasing adjudications officer hiring and training, and reducing the backlog of FBI name checks.

USCIS has reduced processing times for applications and petitions thanks in large part to the increase of trained adjudications officers hired as a result of the implementation of last year’s new fee structure. USCIS surpassed annual targets for completed asylum applications and supported the highest level of refugee admissions in the last seven fiscal years. The agency worked closely with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to reduce name checks pending for more than one year and is on track to eliminate by early next year those pending more than six months.

Processing Times for Naturalization Applications

During FY08, USCIS completed an unprecedented 1,171,140 naturalization applications, an increase of more than 422,000 processed applications a year earlier. Production for FY08 increased by 56 percent over FY2007, and surpassed original naturalization projections by 233,140 applications.

USCIS continues to make steady progress in reducing the number of pending naturalization applications received during FY07. The processing of naturalization applications is currently averaging 9-10 months, down from the 16-18 months projected after the surge of applications in late FY07. The agency will reduce processing times to five months by the end of FY09.

Hiring and Training

USCIS has made tremendous progress in hiring new employees, particularly adjudications officers, who have directly contributed to reducing the agency’s pending caseload.

USCIS hired 2,058 employees, a 24 percent increase of the USCIS workforce from FY07.

1,600 of USCIS’ new employees have become adjudications officers.

Throughout the year, hundreds of USCIS employees have conducted naturalization interviews on weekends, after normal business hours and traveled to additional locations to further reduce processing times.

USCIS designed an extensive training program and course curricula at the USCIS Training Academy to be both flexible and adaptable to the training and educational needs of USCIS employees. The Academy also placed an unprecedented number of newly-hired adjudications officers through a restructured BASIC training program that allows officers to exit the academy ‘job-ready’, thus making an immediate impact on pending caseloads.

The personnel enhancements allow USCIS to more efficiently process applications, provide better customer service, and improve security against fraud and possible threats to our homeland.

FBI Name Checks

During FY08, USCIS worked with the FBI to effectively eliminate all pending name checks more than two years old and reduced the number of cases waiting for a name check final result from almost 350,000 in late FY07 to less than 37,000. The FBI is on target to eliminate all name checks pending more than six months by early 2009.

Refugee and Asylum Processing

During FY08, the USCIS Refugee Affairs Division, in coordination with USCIS overseas district offices, deployed officers to 71 countries to interview more than 100,000 refugee applicants from 59 nations. These efforts supported the admission of more than 60,000 refugees from around the world, a 25 percent increase in refugee admissions compared to FY07, and the highest level of admissions since FY01.

Since the large-scale Iraqi refugee processing was announced in February 2007, the Departments of Homeland Security and State have worked cooperatively to increase the number of Iraqi refugees admitted as part of the worldwide commitment. DHS and DOS have streamlined the process for admitting Iraqi refugees to the United States and share responsibility for initiating security checks of Iraqi refugee applicants. During FY08, the Refugee Affairs Division deployed more than 150 officers in the Middle East to interview more than 23,000 Iraqi refugee applicants. As a result of these efforts, more than 13,800 Iraqi refugees were admitted during FY08, exceeding the Administration’s goal of 12,000 admissions and establishing a robust pipeline of approved Iraqi refugee applicants for admission in FY09.

USCIS’ Asylum Division completed more than 47,000 asylum applications (120 percent of the division’s annual target). This reduced the total end of the year pending applications to a historically unprecedented level.

E-Verify

Free, safe, secure and simple to use, E-Verify is the best means available for determining employment eligibility of new hires and the validity of their Social Security Numbers. The program provides participating employers an automated Internet-based resource to verify the employment eligibility of newly hired employees. Through this process, E-Verify assists employers in maintaining a legal workforce and protects jobs for authorized U.S. workers.

More than 92,000 employers are currently using E-Verify to verify that their new hires are authorized to work in the United States.

During FY08, approximately 6.6 million employment verification queries were run (as compared to a total of 3.27 million in all of FY07).

The Department of Homeland Security’s FY09 appropriation legislation, signed into law on Sept. 30, 2008, provided $100 million to continue, expand, and improve E-Verify in FY09.

A recent study conducted by Westat, a social science research firm which monitors the effect of various changes made to the E-Verify program, found that between April and June 2008:

Approximately 96.1 percent of all cases queried through E-Verify were instantly found to be employment authorized (this is a substantial improvement from 94.2 percent);

About 99.6 percent of all work-authorized employees verified through E-Verify are verified without receiving a tentative nonconfirmation or having to take any type of corrective action;

Erroneous tentative nonconfirmations (those that were work-authorized but who received a tentative nonconfirmation) has improved from 0.5% to 0.4%. Ultimately, these mismatches are successfully resolved; and

Of all queries received, final nonconfirmations (meaning not work-authorized) are 3.5 percent; down from 5.3 percent.

USCIS Transformation

USCIS is committed to making investments which will result in long-term changes to the agency’s ability to provide better, more timely customer service.

USCIS moves into 2009 with a more aggressive agenda to improve its services to customers.

The agency has awarded the Transformation Solution Architect task order to IBM, a five-year investment to improve its filing and adjudication system.

The task order is just one of the building blocks of USCIS’ overall transformation plan made possible through the implementation of last year’s new fee structure.

Future contracts that will add more building blocks to USCIS’ transformation plan include program management office support and a research and development center contract to assist in administrative and program oversight.

and with all that i personally have seen no improvement in customer service or the process

[DanielParul 50]

Hope this time its not all talk

[Laura+Tom 2]

Being a true 'geek' I often wondered what the process might be like if everything was handled electronically. As much as i'd liek that, I can't even being to imagine the security measures that would have to be taken to keep all of this information private. Not to mention the overseas part of this process.

I can see people hacking into very personal information.

I suppose in time we'll see much of the process done electronically but I also think we'll have a way to go before that happens.

It's scary indeed, however it is do able. They still have to protect our paper forms (and look how many go missing). There will have to be so many measures in place to ensure that the storage of the information is robust. I work in government IT assurance and have already seen information go missing from government departments (google HMRC data loss or RAF Innsworth hard drive theft) but that was due to people not following proper protocol.

I just wonder how they will deal with all the evidence as that will still have to be submitted by paper.

[Kathryn41 3,205]

The agency in a statement called the initial task order "just one of the building blocks of USCIS' overall transformation plan." That plan is being funded with the help of a summer 2007 fee increase on immigrant applicants, which freed up roughly $650 million over five years, said Scharfen's acting deputy, Mike Aytes.

I found this interesting - we were told fees were going up so they could afford to hire staff to catch up on the backload - before the big backload hit - and that was the reason it was such a big increase. Seems like they have more projects than the ones they tell us about that we are funding.

I have seen service decrease, not increase since the fee increase. They have over 100,000 MISSING applications? My God! Think what will happen when that is electronically handled especially if they are still using minimum wage contract staff with minimal training. There is no way that they can go paperless - they can certainly reduce papers but any lawyer will tell you that a computer copy of a document doesn't hold up in a court of law - you need the original paper document, which is why you still have records management people using record retention schedules with 5 and 7 year time lines - for legal purposes.

And, we are talking about immigration. Here, in a first world country, people generally have access to electronic and computer media. How much can that be said about the rest of the world? Like the article, it seems that they are only thinking of narrow immigration applications - citizenship applications and employment applications from US based employers working in a modern world. What about the rest of us? I suspect we will still be waiting in the 'backlog'.

[rebeccajo 14]

http://www.uscis.gov/files/pressrelease/27mar07.pdf

The fee increase was implemented for many reasons. Hiring new personnel was just one of many goals.

See Pages 5 and 6 particularly for Gonzalez statements, including mention of IT improvements.

[JVKn'CVO 11]

yay! petitions are way bulky. going paperless would be great for the environment

Saludos,

Caro