US Citizenship & Immigration Services (USCIS) reportedly spends $300 million per year on paper and their alleged mismanagement of paper-based applications as well as clerical errors in processing paper-based evidence has caused serious consequences for certain immigrants. The agency has repeatedly failed to come up with a viable electronic-based filing system, which ultimately might improve processing efficiency and times, despite spending over a billion dollars over a thirteen-year time period.
Read moreHow to Replace or Renew Your Green Card
Whether it is a lost Green Card (you know the feeling when you have searched everywhere and slowly come to the dreaded realization that it’s gone) or an expired ten-year Green Card, or even if there is a mistake on your Green Card, you will have to get a new card. And, of course, this type of thing always seems to happen when you have to travel internationally or are starting a new job in a few days. What to do???
Read moreUSCIS Launches Mobile Form for Replacing Green Card
US Citizenship & Immigration Services (USCIS) has introduced a new way to file the Form I-90, Application to Replace Permanent Resident Card. Lawful permanent residents (i.e., Green Card holders) who file the online Form I-90, without assistance from an attorney or accredited representative, can now file the I-90 and upload the necessary evidence entirely on a mobile device. This redesign of the online Form I-90—which applicants use to renew or replace a Green Card—also allows lawful permanent residents to navigate the online site more easily and should, USCIS claims, make the overall process of renewing or replacing Green Cards “more convenient.” The I-90 is one form that can easily be prepared and filed by foreign nationals themselves without the assistance of attorneys. Protima previously discussed the process of applying for an I-90, which is helpful knowledge in case the Green Card is ever lost (God forbid!) or needs to be replaced or renewed.
Read moreUSCIS Is Going Paperless (Someday): What Could Possibly Go Wrong?
They say the art of letter writing is dead, and yet every week we send carefully penned letters, laboriously printed on reams of dead trees and lovingly hand-signed in blue or black ink, a choice that can be surprisingly important to the receiving agent at US Citizenship & Immigration Services (USCIS). Many US government agencies have implemented electronic forms for everything from paying your taxes to registering to vote. And, of course, many people have been conducting much of their personal business online for decades now—from ordering lunch to banking to managing their 401(k).
Read moreWashington Post: “A decade into a project to digitize U.S. immigration forms, just 1 is online”
After a decade and $1 billion, a project to digitize US immigration forms and the application process by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and US Citizenship & Immigration Services (USCIS) has resulted in only one electronic form. The digitization project was originally supposed to cost $500 million and be completed in 2013. The total cost is now estimated at $3.1 billion and isn’t scheduled to be completed for another four years.
What Went Wrong?
The digitization was mismanaged from the beginning, records and interviews show. Notably, officials did not “complete the basic plans for the computer system until nearly three years after the initial $500 million contract had been awarded to IBM, and the approach to adopting the technology was outdated before work on it began.” Although in 2012, officials of DHS and USCIS were well aware the project had hundreds of software defects, the agency nevertheless chose to begin the rollout, in part reportedly because of pressure from Obama administration officials who thought the project was vital as part of the proposed comprehensive immigration reform.
In the end, only three of USCIS’s forms out of nearly a hundred were digitized and available on the electronic immigration system known as ELIS, a homage to the iconic island that housed the first federal immigration processing center. Two of these forms were consequently taken offline after the software and hardware had to be discarded. One of the digitized forms, Form I-526, Petition by Alien Entrepreneur, for EB-5 immigrant investors, was only reportedly used by eighty applicants, DHS officials said, and was met with many complaints. More than 10,000 other immigrant investor applicants opted for paper-based applications.
The sole form that is now available for electronic filing is the I-90, which can be filed to renew or replace Green Cards (i.e. permanent resident cards). According to a June report from the USCIS ombudsman, however, in nearly 200 I-90 cases filed through the electronic system, applicants did not receive their cards or had to wait up to a year, despite multiple requests.
“You’re going on 11 years into this project, they only have one form, and we’re still a paper-based agency,’’ Kenneth Palinkas, former president of the union that represents employees at the immigration agency, said in the Washington Post. “It’s a huge albatross around our necks.’’
A Fresh Start
At one point, 500 IBM engineers were working on the project with IBM initially using an outdated programming approach. While DHS officials acknowledge the setbacks they say they are on their way to automating the immigration service, which processes about 8 million applications per year.
“In 2012, we made some hard decisions to turn the Transformation Program around using the latest industry best practices and approaches, instead of simply scratching it and starting over,’’ Shin Inouye, a spokesman for USCIS, told the Washington Post. “We took a fresh start—a fix that required an overhaul of the development process—from contracting to development methodology to technology.”
“Since making these changes, we have been able to develop and deploy a new system that is able to process about 1.2 million benefit requests out of USCIS’s total annual work volume,” Inouye added. “Our goals remain to improve operations, increase efficiency, and prepare for any changes to our immigration laws. Based on our recent progress, we are confident we are moving in the right direction.”
National Security
Apart from lost and misplaced paper applications, many advocate switching to electronic versions of forms to assist in national security. While DHS officials said “they are confident that the current paper-based system is not putting the nation at risk,” Palma Yanni, a D.C. immigration lawyer and past president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA), is not so sure. She said in the Washington Post: “If there are some bad apples in there who should not get a green card, who are terrorists who want to do us harm, how on earth are they going to find these people if they’re sending mountains of paper immigration files all over the United States?’’
5 Helpful Functions of USCIS.gov Every Foreign National Should Know
The USCIS.gov website, redesigned in 2013 with additional user-friendly features introduced throughout 2014, is inviting and still looks brand new. More importantly, as the official site of US Citizenship & Immigration Services (USCIS), USCIS.gov contains a great deal of helpful information and user-friendly tools (and they also have a cool blog!). Here are five functions of USCIS.gov that may serve as useful resources for many foreign nationals and those with cases with USCIS.
1. Check Your Case Status & Submit a Case Inquiry or Service Request Online
Instead of calling the USCIS 1-800 number to check on a case status, the case status online feature allows foreign nationals to track their application or petition by using their receipt number (a unique thirteen-character identifier assigned to each case and included on every I-797 Notice of Action) as it moves through the immigration process. Foreign nationals may also create an account to sign up for email or text message notifications when an update on their case is available, which is especially useful for those who do not want to keep checking USCIS.gov every day.
The case query/service request feature allows foreign nationals to submit case inquiries online—again, instead of calling USCIS—if they believe their pending case is taking longer than the normal processing time; or if a notice, card, or other document was not received by mail and may be lost or missing. It also allows foreign nationals to submit service requests if they need appointment accommodations or if they spot a typographical error in their case information, which is essential to get fixed as soon as possible.
Read moreNextgov: "New USCIS Computer Was Supposed to Speed Up Immigration Processing. What Went Wrong?"
The online electronic system that was supposed to transition US Citizenship & Immigration Services (USCIS) away from paper-based applications to a sophisticated and secure online system has faced major delays and increasingly high budget costs and isn't expected to be fully operational until 2018 or 2019. This system, called the Electronic Immigration System (or ELIS, to honor our nation's first federal immigration processing center) is an online, account-based system that allows users to "submit and view certain benefit requests, receive electronic notification of decisions, and receive real-time case status updates."
Currently ELIS is only available for paying the immigrant visa fee and for I-539 applications as well as EB-5 Investor Visa applications. (For a short window I-90 applications were accepted). The ELIS system was originally budgeted at $536,000 with a 2013 completion date and now has a price tag of $2.6 billion, which has been financed by USCIS application fees. The system was designed to streamline the immigration application process and make case review and adjudication more effective and efficient for the estimated 18,000 USCIS officers and contractors who process the six million immigration benefits yearly.
Nextgov reports that as USCIS fixes, programs, and further develops ELIS capabilities USCIS field offices continue to use outdated and incompatible systems and that the most troubling aspect is "paper files have proved more efficient than ELIS as it currently operates." Indeed, a 2014 Inspector General report found that it takes twice as long for an officer to close a case with ELIS than with paper documents, citing the 100 to 150 clicks required for moving through the ELIS system. A staffer on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee says: "'Transitioning to an electronic system would improve USCIS’ search capability, help it analyze for patterns, and share information on an interagency basis[.]”
USCIS press secretary Shin Inouye says that going digital "'is a priority for USCIS,'" and that they "'will continue to engage with stakeholders, members of Congress, and interested individuals as we build a system that will transform the way USCIS accesses information and processes cases, while maintaining our commitment to ensuring the integrity of America’s immigration process.'"
In the meantime, FedEx, UPS, and the US Postal Service aren't complaining.
UPDATE (April 2, 2015): USCIS announced earlier this week that Form I-90, Application to Replace Permanent Resident Card, is available in the ELIS system after a short trial period last year. Lawful permanent residents may now use ELIS to apply for a replacement or renewal of their existing permanent resident card (i.e., Green Card). Conditional permanent residents may use ELIS to apply only for a replacement of an existing Green Card; they may not use this form to apply for an extension or renewal of their status.
UPDATE (June 24, 2015): USCIS announced that as of June 15, 2015, they are longer accepting electronically filed Form I-539, Application to Extend/Change Nonimmigrant Status, and Form I-526, Immigrant Petition by Alien Entrepreneur. In addition, USCIS discontinued the Regional Center Document Library. For those who have a pending or draft case created before June 15, USCIS will continue to adjudicate those cases to completion and allow thirty days for completion and submission of the draft cases. Moreover, those who filed a Form I-539 or Form I-526 electronically before June 15 will still be able to access their account to check case status, change address, and respond to requests for evidence. Those who filed Form I-526 electronically will still be able to review and attest existing deal packages created by the Document Library Manager; however, Document Library Managers will not be able to create new document libraries or deal packages. Time to get out that typewriter again! (Okay, or maybe just fill the forms out on a computer.)