Immigrants Still Can't Rely On USCIS Electronic-Filing System

[Dianalorena 1,153]

Billion-Dollar Blunder: Immigrants Still Can't Rely On USCIS Electronic-Filing System 

 

 

Capital Flows ,  

 CONTRIBUTOR

Guest commentary curated by Forbes Opinion. Avik Roy, Opinion Editor.  

Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.

 

More than 10 years into a multibillion-dollar transformation effort, filing fees have increased again, backlogs and processing times are as long as ever, and if you use the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services' (USCIS) electronic-filing system, well, they might just lose your paperwork. Even worse, they might send someone else your green card.

The USCIS’ Electronic Immigration System (ELIS) was supposed to fully digitize immigration paperwork. Instead, billions have been invested in a failed effort that has resulted in budget overages, product delays and software defects. Not to mention, the USCIS received more than 200,000 complaints of missing green cards from approved applicants over the past three years, according to a recent report released by the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General.

ELIS was supposed to cost $500 million and be completed by 2013. The most recent projections peg the cost at $3.1 billion, with an expected completion date of 2019. It’s 2017, and the only immigration form available to be signed and filed online is the I-90, which allows permanent residents and conditional permanent residents to renew their green cards.

 

A USCIS officer handles folders with immigrants' applications for permanent U.S. residency in the Dallas Field Office on August 22, 2016 in Irving, Texas. (John Moore/Getty Images)

 

As someone who works directly with immigrants who need help navigating overcomplicated USCIS forms, I have heard countless stories of I-90 filing attempts gone wrong. The U.S. government has also acknowledged the USCIS’ ineptitude. ELIS was directly responsible for at least 19,000 incidents, where green cards were produced with incorrect information or were issued in duplicate.

Additionally, cards were issued that never should have been, and recovery efforts, according to the report, “lacked consistency and a sense of urgency.” The report recommends the USCIS “improve Electronic Immigration System (ELIS) functionality and develop internal controls to avoid inappropriate Green Card issuance.”

Can the USCIS be trusted? More than a decade after a December 2005 USCIS newsletter prominently featured a headline that read, “Don’t Wait In Line…. Go Online,” little progress has been made toward a workable solution.

As hundreds of thousands of approved green card holders grapple with the inefficiencies of a fundamentally broken system, it is yet another reminder that the USCIS’ e-filing system is an abject failure. It’s as confounding as it is maddening. The USCIS needs to ditch their playbook and join forces with private companies.

The private sector has shown the capability to streamline a process to file immigration paperwork online, similar to what TurboTax did for filing taxes. The IRS processes more than 130 million tax returns annually, and via the TurboTax software, the forms are filled out and filed to the IRS electronically.

Immigration software companies allow customers to fill out the paperwork with step-by-step instructions and safeguards to ensure it is done correctly. But the paperwork has to be printed out and mailed to the USCIS. It is time to cut out the middleman and work together.

Private companies are eager to collaborate, but the USCIS would rather be an ineffective lone wolf. Throughout government relations projects focused on bridging the technology integration gaps between private companies and the USCIS, it’s a testament to the USCIS’ stubbornness that they fail to see the status quo is not good enough.

For now, the USCIS is content to repeat the mistakes that have culminated in ELIS’ latest failure. The system as it stands is archaically inefficient, expensive and seemingly broken. Lives and livelihoods continue to be impacted, and that’s a shame. The USCIS can, and should, do better. We live in a digital world. It is time for the USCIS to follow suit.

 

 

Edited February 17, 2017 by Dilorena

[MXcompadre 75]

So true!  Unfortunately bureaucrats are very slow at accepting and embracing change, even when it will provide more efficient results with less/fewer mistakes and/or headaches...  

[Dianalorena 1,153]

3 hours ago, MXcompadre said:

So true!  Unfortunately bureaucrats are very slow at accepting and embracing change, even when it will provide more efficient results with less/fewer mistakes and/or headaches...  

so many things that could be done better. I'm shocked at the amount of money it takes and how awful the service is, still. And now after the fee increase, they're taking longer to process and charge more now . Logic! 

[charmander 692]

It is kind of mindboggling how difficult it is to implement a robust document management system. Government at its best again. I think Obamacare was a good example for a failed software project. They keyword was "priority" there. Once they realized the failure, they took necessary action to fix it. Unfortunately immigration and citizenship is not a priority from the voter's side. Neither of the parties would lose votes due to a malfunctioning immigration software. It is the immigrants that are being affected but they can't vote, so no immediate action is necessary. 

 

By the way, no where in that article it is mentioned who was the contractor for ELIS. It was IBM. 

[Dianalorena 1,153]

4 hours ago, charmander said:

It is kind of mindboggling how difficult it is to implement a robust document management system. Government at its best again. I think Obamacare was a good example for a failed software project. They keyword was "priority" there. Once they realized the failure, they took necessary action to fix it. Unfortunately immigration and citizenship is not a priority from the voter's side. Neither of the parties would lose votes due to a malfunctioning immigration software. It is the immigrants that are being affected but they can't vote, so no immediate action is necessary. 

 

By the way, no where in that article it is mentioned who was the contractor for ELIS. It was IBM. 

I didn't know it was IBM! That sort of explains a lot. 

sigh, you're absolutely right. Meanwhile the time for our cases to be adjudicated keeps increasing, we are left waiting and waiting, many times even dealing with human error, and there really isn't anything we can do about it.