Re: 2004 Budget
Originally posted by w8nc
Text from the above link.
At the time of this writing USCIS was already into the 2nd. quarter of their fiscal year.
Bottom line: US CIS is late, too late to ask for direct appropriations for fiscal year 2004. About 20 other refugee and immigration items do have appropriations. The reason is in GAO-04-309R. They do not fully acknowledge the problem, the size of it and thus the cost needed to solve it. In the end, it will happen like it did before (see link). The 100 million dollars (Bush) for 2002 was collected as 45+35+UNUSED FUNDS from previous year. Fiscal year 2005 will have a lot of UNUSED FUNDS from 2004! Way to go US CIS! Cheat yourself, the American people and thousands of legal immigrants.
Latest: Action to be taken finally in 2005??
Courtesy of "www.immigration-law.com"
02/03/2004: USCIS Proposes to Increase Filing Fees!
This appears to be the USCIS response to the GAO criticism which we reported earlier that the USCIS had a financial shortfall to deal with the backlogs but did not have any mechanism to figure out the
scope of the needed funds. The immigrant community would not mind of fee increase if it will indeed ensure a drastic reduction of processing times and backlogs.
From the Federal registry and other sources:
The cost of the SECURITY CHECKS finally revealed.
No wonder we do have a backlog. All US CIS is doing is security checks and FP. Also, the secrecy involved and OUR rights violated.
A. National Security Enhancements
In processing immigration benefit applications, BCIS is making national security a high priority. Since July 2002, BCIS has added
security checks to the processing of all imigration benefit applications to help ensure that those who receive immigration benefits
have come to join the people of the United States in building a better society and not to do harm.
The process of performing security checks has been designed to compare information on applicants, petitioners, beneficiaries,
derivatives and household members who apply for an immigration benefit on a BCIS immigration benefit application against various Federal lookout systems.
The purpose of conducting security checks is to help law enforcement agencies identify risks to the community and/or to national security and to prevent ineligible individuals from obtaining
immigration benefits. BCIS performs two routine checks; one when the application is initially received, and one at the time of adjudication.
This change in the manner in which BCIS processes immigration benefit applications has increased processing costs because the costs
of performing these checks were not factored into the initial fee schedule. As a result, existing resources have been diverted in order to perform the additional security checks until the fees could be adjusted to cover these costs.
To determine the impact on resources of the additional security checks, BCIS developed a methodology to identify the additional time or
``level of effort'' needed to perform the additional security checks by an adjudicator, since time is a key factor in determining immigration benefit application fees.
In identifying the average time for the additional security checks, BCIS employed a time and motion study through on-site visits to various
field offices. To collect a representative sample, BCIS reviewed adjudications at small, medium, and large-sized field offices. To ensure the integrity of the process, BCIS personnel interviewed those
who performed the security checks on various immigration benefit applications, validated the times through random observations, and revalidated those times with BCIS personnel.
BCIS calculated the total time requirements using average check times, average number of checks per application, as well as application
volumes (using number of applications received for the initial check and number of applications completed for the adjudications check). The
total time was then converted into the total cost of performing the additional security checks.
The analysis revealed an annual cost of about $140 million to recover the costs of security enhancements. This equates to a $21 per application charge.
01/28/2004: Importance of Responsive Government and Public's Right to Know
We live in an environment that calls for our support and participation in the fight on terrorism. The war on terrorism would necessarily demand control and management of flow of information and communication. However, at the end of other spectrum, there is a fundamental principle for democramic government and the stitutional principle that unless the people are informed of what the government does, people cannot exercise their fundamental rights to make
an "informed" political decision and participation in the government process.
This website has been monitoring the government process and activities as related to the immigration process for the past five years. Lately, we notice that the government agencies restrain themselves, either voluntarily or involuntarily, from releasing information about what the government does. Those who have visited the websites of U.S. Department of State, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security including U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, and
other immigration-related government agencies must have noticed that only a fraction of information has been made public on the agencies' policy making process and their operations and activities. Along with this trend, one cannot but notice a drastic shrinkage of the rule-making activities as witnessed through the federal registers. Again, we agree with the government that the flow of information and communication needs to be somewhat controlled and we, the people, must tolerate and sacrify our right to know in democratic government and under the Constitution of the nation. The question is, though,where we should draw the line. Unrestrained control of flow of information and communication is not tolerable. Apparently, the line should be drawn at the point where the information or communication may affect our efforts to fight on terrorism. When certain information or communication is not related to the interest in fight against the terrorism or remotely related to such issue, assuming it affects such issue at all, the government should not be allowed to infringe the people's right to know the government's activities.
Obviously, international terrorism involves foreigners and there are some information that the government should protect from their access to such information. Without doubt, some areas of immigration and visa policy may need to be protected from such terrorists' access. However, it does not justify that most of information or visa policies, policy-making activities, and operation of the agencies should be shielded from public access simply because the subject is immigration or visa. This is a classical example of the information which is indeed "remotely" related to the issues of terrorism. We hope that the government opens a gate for flow of information and communication between the government and their customers and constituents, particulary the immigrant community.
