AGENCY IN MELTDOWN:
Major Problems Continue with INS Adjudication of Benefits for Immigrants

THE ISSUE:  Over the last five years, INS processing of applications and petitions for various immigration benefits, everything from temporary work visas to green cards and naturalization, has slowed to a crawl at almost all of the Immigration and Naturalization Service’s (INS’) processing locations.  The effect of this meltdown is increasing uncertainty for immigrants, their U.S. relatives, and employers, as cases are held in limbo for months, if not years.

BACKGROUND:  This situation has arisen due to a confluence of many factors, some of which are listed below:

·        Unreasonable Congressional Mandates:  In the last several years, Congress has passed a series of changes to immigration law that have resulted in unreasonable mandates on the INS’s already strained resources.  Congress has implemented laws with unreasonably short implementation deadlines (such as a week to transition fingerprint-taking from private agencies to the INS), failed to adequately address funding issues commensurate with new mandates (such as filing increases from Central American relief legislation and H-1B increases), and revoked the agency’s discretion in its handling of its caseload in many areas (requiring backlog reduction in naturalization at the expense of other adjudications).

·        Lack of Funding:  While the INS’ budget has increased 184% in the last seven years, almost none of that increase has been for improvements to the processing and adjudication of applications.  While many of the adjudications functions are supposed to be supported by user fees paid by the applicants and petitioners, Congress has diverted a significant portion of the fees to support other functions, such as detention. In addition, since INS’ budgets are based on previous years’ figures, recent slowdowns in some types of filings, coupled with a loss of revenue from the sunsetting of Section 245(i), have resulted in severe budget shortfalls for the adjudications division (estimated at $200 million for the current fiscal year), and further problems in reducing the backlogs.

·        Increase in Filings:  In the last seven years, the number of filings in all categories (family, employment, asylum, naturalization) has increased dramatically.  In addition, due to changes in the qualification requirements in many immigration categories, and the changing nature of employment, the complexity of these filings also has increased dramatically.  Thus, the filings take longer to evaluate properly, and many more of them are being filed.

·        INS Policies that Exacerbate the Problems:  INS has made several policy decisions in the last several years, and has failed to change outdated policies, that have exacerbated the problem.  For example, INS continues to require additional filings for some persons with valid visas who wish to travel while awaiting a decision on their green card applications.  INS also issues documents with very limited validity periods, thus requiring more frequent filings for extensions.

·         Continuing Technology Problems:  Although INS has made progress in attempting to utilize technology to help with its processing problems, every technological advance seems to come at a cost.  Persistent bugs, computer systems that do not meet the needs of the processing centers, or that are put into exclusive operation with minimal field testing, problems with automated scheduling software, coordination of systems between the various INS locations, and long delays in fixing these problems, all contribute to increased processing times and increased backlogs when any particular system “crashes.”  For example, ongoing problems with the software used to schedule fingerprints have resulted in long waits and backlogs in both naturalization and green card processing.

·        Agency Mentality that Presumes Violations:  The INS frequently will place large blocks of cases on “hold” while it conducts extensive fraud investigations.  These investigations may be the result of a few isolated incidents where deception was uncovered after cases were approved.  However, instead of instituting quality control procedures that would subject only a few random cases to investigation, hundreds or perhaps thousands of cases matching a “profile” are tossed into this limbo.  Furthermore, because the INS will not make these “profiles” public so that filers can address the issues up-front, unsuspecting applicants and petitioners have no idea why their cases are suddenly stopped dead in their tracks.

CURRENT STATUS:  Due to the backlogs and lack of adequate funding, cases are inconsistently processed at the four regional service centers.  This inconsistency results in disparate treatment, depending on the petitioner’s geographic location.  In some cases, long delays can result in failure to receive a benefit.  In the four Service Centers, the times for adjusting certain applications vary widely, as follows:

Because of the estimated $138 million budget shortfall this year in adjudications, INS has eliminated all overtime to address the backlogs, which will only increase in the coming months.

AILA’s POSITION: AILA believes there are many possible solutions to the problems noted above.  However, first and foremost, Congress should demonstrate its support for the adjudications function of INS by 1) appropriating adequate funding for adjudications, so that, together with user fees, both sources will support the agency’s increased workload; 2) stressing the importance of the timely provision of immigrant services when debating any new immigration legislation; and 3) including reasonable deadlines in implementing new laws.  By placing equal emphasis on INS adjudications as is placed on enforcement, the two sides of U.S. immigration policy can be well served.

39AD9002/ Last Updated October 8, 1999