I know that several of us (myself included) have had some choice words for immigration officers. I thought the following was worth reading. I realize the date and the fact that it is TSC and not CSC, but I can't imagine things being too drastically different. May be we should keep the following working conditions in mind the next time we want to lash out or send countless emails or other communique.
By Lorenzo Lleras Date: 2/14/2002
I want to give our readers an idea of the general feel of the inside of the building and how the work is performed.
Once we were introduced to the top officers and supervisors of the TSC, we broke up into small groups of about five or six attorneys. We went into almost every room except for the computer room. I was able to see everything from the docks where the mail arrives in large truck loads to the room where the files are stored.
The one thing that I did not see was officers working on H-1B, I-140s, and all the other petitions that we send to the TSC. The reason? The building that I visited, the one located in St. Augustine Road, is only one half of the TSC operations. The St. Augustine Road facility is there to receive mail, sort out mail, categorize cases, store cases, and send correspondence. The facility at North Stemmons Freeway is the one that houses the INS officers who review the files and make decisions on the cases. That there are two facilities should have been obvious for we know that there is an address at North Stemmons Freeway and one at St. Augustine Road. However, what is not so obvious, and what I did not know, is that the facilities have such distinct duties and that they are 25 miles apart!
That is right, folks. The St. Augustine Road facility is the mail room and storage part of the operation but it is not just down the hall or down the street from the other building. The facilities are a good 30 minutes away from each other if the traffic is perfect. Those of you who live in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area know that traffic is anything but perfect.
When a given case arrives at the mail docks at St. Augustine Road, it is sorted and a file is opened. That file is later transferred to the North Stemmons Freeway facility when its time comes for adjudication. Once the officer at North Stemmons Freeway either decides to send a Request for Further Evidence (RFE) or approve the case, the file is actually shipped back to St. Augustine Road. If we are dealing with an RFE, when the RFE response arrives at St. Augustine Road, the response is matched with the file and then sent back to North Stemmons Freeway for the officer to consider. When the officer decides to approve or deny the case, the file is sent back to St. Augustine Road where a decision notice is then generated and sent to us, the public.
For any of you who have ever wondered where the files are stored while priority dates are becoming current or where files are stored pending an RFE response, I had an opportunity to see the room. Just imagine a large warehouse with aluminum metal shelving about six feet high and stretching over the length and width of a football field. Then imagine boxes with cases and mail being handled with forklifts and you pretty much have the picture.
Before Monday, I was truly baffled at how TSC could lose or misplace a file. Today I am not amazed at the fact that files are lost or misplaced; frankly, I am amazed that MORE files are not lost or misplaced. I am also no longer intrigued as to why it is that if I send an RFE response via Airborne for delivery tomorrow morning, a decision will not be made tomorrow, or the next day for that matter. It is one thing to talk about the raw number of petitions and mail processed at TSC, which I knew and will discuss below, but it is quite another to see it in person and appreciate it with your own eyes.
My mind is still blown away by the fact that these thousands of files are ping pong balls struck back and forth over a distance of 25 miles. By the way, that also explains why it is that if we ever send additional information on a particular file at a time when INS has not requested it, it has little chance of actually being matched up with the file.
I am not quite sure what it is that I expected to see but I think that I imagined an "automatized" operation with conveyor belts, mail sorters of some kind, and machines that printed out the notices, folded the notices and stuffed them in the envelopes. What I saw was a worker's beehive of activity where almost all the labor is done by the old fashioned method: the human hand.
The facility itself is large and cold. Save for three posters, the walls were blank. For those of you curious as to the nature of those posters, there was one poster that had the blown up paragraph from the United States Code discussing bribes and the penalties for offering or receiving a bribe and an admonishment to report any activity that can be interpreted as an offer for a bribe. The second poster, the one that seemed to be everywhere, is a poster that has a graphic of robotic eyes warning that "electronic eyes never blink." The third poster that was on prominent display throughout the building was a poster of the statute of liberty with a notation stating "stealing from this location is like stealing from her."
The desks are mostly dark brown pressed fiber board desks without drawers. Only the supervisors have desks that have one or two drawers. As a matter of fact, the employees have lockers that they have to visit as soon as they enter the facility for they are not allowed to have personal belongings at their desks. The thinking behind the desks without drawers is that nothing can be hidden and that work must be done and cleared from the desks.
The truth is that most of the personnel at the St. Augustine facility is not INS personnel. They wear blue polo shirts with the notation "SCOT" inscribed on the left hand side of their chests. SCOT stands for "Service Center Operations Team." However, these folks work for a contractor that was awarded a contract with INS for mail and data processing. This company was awarded the contract last year. According to the INS personnel, things have been running more smoothly with this contractor because the contract that they have in place is incentive based. Apparently, the old contractor was not actually paid based on the amount of work actually done but rather the amount of time elapsed, whereas the new contractor only gets paid on results. If they exceed expectations, they are rewarded with a premium. If their work falls below expectations, they make less money. As a result, the new contractor is much more vigilant and more willing to terminate employees who do not perform up to standard.
Today, I want to leave you with some figures to ponder:
125,000 square feet - size of the St. Augustine Road Facility;
80,000 square feet - size of the North Stemmons Freeway facility;
381 - total number of INS employees at the TSC;
485 - total number of INS employees that will be employed at TSC once the new hires pass the background checks;
1.5 million cards - number of green cards processed by the TSC (Note: TSC does the prep work for ALL permanent residence cards issued in the United States. Once TSC processes the information, the "green cards" are manufactured at a facility in Kentucky);
900,000 - total number of EADs processed at TSC last year;
374,000 - total number of active cases currently pending at TSC;
67,000 - total number of employment-based adjustment of status processed at TSC each month;
103,0000 - total number of pieces of mail processed every week at TSC;
7,000,000 - total number of petitions processed by INS last year;
9,400,000 - total number of petitions expected to be filed with INS this year.
By Lorenzo Lleras Date: 2/14/2002
I want to give our readers an idea of the general feel of the inside of the building and how the work is performed.
Once we were introduced to the top officers and supervisors of the TSC, we broke up into small groups of about five or six attorneys. We went into almost every room except for the computer room. I was able to see everything from the docks where the mail arrives in large truck loads to the room where the files are stored.
The one thing that I did not see was officers working on H-1B, I-140s, and all the other petitions that we send to the TSC. The reason? The building that I visited, the one located in St. Augustine Road, is only one half of the TSC operations. The St. Augustine Road facility is there to receive mail, sort out mail, categorize cases, store cases, and send correspondence. The facility at North Stemmons Freeway is the one that houses the INS officers who review the files and make decisions on the cases. That there are two facilities should have been obvious for we know that there is an address at North Stemmons Freeway and one at St. Augustine Road. However, what is not so obvious, and what I did not know, is that the facilities have such distinct duties and that they are 25 miles apart!
That is right, folks. The St. Augustine Road facility is the mail room and storage part of the operation but it is not just down the hall or down the street from the other building. The facilities are a good 30 minutes away from each other if the traffic is perfect. Those of you who live in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area know that traffic is anything but perfect.
When a given case arrives at the mail docks at St. Augustine Road, it is sorted and a file is opened. That file is later transferred to the North Stemmons Freeway facility when its time comes for adjudication. Once the officer at North Stemmons Freeway either decides to send a Request for Further Evidence (RFE) or approve the case, the file is actually shipped back to St. Augustine Road. If we are dealing with an RFE, when the RFE response arrives at St. Augustine Road, the response is matched with the file and then sent back to North Stemmons Freeway for the officer to consider. When the officer decides to approve or deny the case, the file is sent back to St. Augustine Road where a decision notice is then generated and sent to us, the public.
For any of you who have ever wondered where the files are stored while priority dates are becoming current or where files are stored pending an RFE response, I had an opportunity to see the room. Just imagine a large warehouse with aluminum metal shelving about six feet high and stretching over the length and width of a football field. Then imagine boxes with cases and mail being handled with forklifts and you pretty much have the picture.
Before Monday, I was truly baffled at how TSC could lose or misplace a file. Today I am not amazed at the fact that files are lost or misplaced; frankly, I am amazed that MORE files are not lost or misplaced. I am also no longer intrigued as to why it is that if I send an RFE response via Airborne for delivery tomorrow morning, a decision will not be made tomorrow, or the next day for that matter. It is one thing to talk about the raw number of petitions and mail processed at TSC, which I knew and will discuss below, but it is quite another to see it in person and appreciate it with your own eyes.
My mind is still blown away by the fact that these thousands of files are ping pong balls struck back and forth over a distance of 25 miles. By the way, that also explains why it is that if we ever send additional information on a particular file at a time when INS has not requested it, it has little chance of actually being matched up with the file.
I am not quite sure what it is that I expected to see but I think that I imagined an "automatized" operation with conveyor belts, mail sorters of some kind, and machines that printed out the notices, folded the notices and stuffed them in the envelopes. What I saw was a worker's beehive of activity where almost all the labor is done by the old fashioned method: the human hand.
The facility itself is large and cold. Save for three posters, the walls were blank. For those of you curious as to the nature of those posters, there was one poster that had the blown up paragraph from the United States Code discussing bribes and the penalties for offering or receiving a bribe and an admonishment to report any activity that can be interpreted as an offer for a bribe. The second poster, the one that seemed to be everywhere, is a poster that has a graphic of robotic eyes warning that "electronic eyes never blink." The third poster that was on prominent display throughout the building was a poster of the statute of liberty with a notation stating "stealing from this location is like stealing from her."
The desks are mostly dark brown pressed fiber board desks without drawers. Only the supervisors have desks that have one or two drawers. As a matter of fact, the employees have lockers that they have to visit as soon as they enter the facility for they are not allowed to have personal belongings at their desks. The thinking behind the desks without drawers is that nothing can be hidden and that work must be done and cleared from the desks.
The truth is that most of the personnel at the St. Augustine facility is not INS personnel. They wear blue polo shirts with the notation "SCOT" inscribed on the left hand side of their chests. SCOT stands for "Service Center Operations Team." However, these folks work for a contractor that was awarded a contract with INS for mail and data processing. This company was awarded the contract last year. According to the INS personnel, things have been running more smoothly with this contractor because the contract that they have in place is incentive based. Apparently, the old contractor was not actually paid based on the amount of work actually done but rather the amount of time elapsed, whereas the new contractor only gets paid on results. If they exceed expectations, they are rewarded with a premium. If their work falls below expectations, they make less money. As a result, the new contractor is much more vigilant and more willing to terminate employees who do not perform up to standard.
Today, I want to leave you with some figures to ponder:
125,000 square feet - size of the St. Augustine Road Facility;
80,000 square feet - size of the North Stemmons Freeway facility;
381 - total number of INS employees at the TSC;
485 - total number of INS employees that will be employed at TSC once the new hires pass the background checks;
1.5 million cards - number of green cards processed by the TSC (Note: TSC does the prep work for ALL permanent residence cards issued in the United States. Once TSC processes the information, the "green cards" are manufactured at a facility in Kentucky);
900,000 - total number of EADs processed at TSC last year;
374,000 - total number of active cases currently pending at TSC;
67,000 - total number of employment-based adjustment of status processed at TSC each month;
103,0000 - total number of pieces of mail processed every week at TSC;
7,000,000 - total number of petitions processed by INS last year;
9,400,000 - total number of petitions expected to be filed with INS this year.
