USCIS: An Overview
The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) is a worldwide network of 250 offices employing 15,000 workers. The USCIS processes all visa and citizenship applications, decides whether or not to grant them, and adjudicates all disputes arising there from.
Prior to its dismantling on March 1, 2003, the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) had come under intense criticism because of its perceived failings relating to September 11, 2001. The INS was held responsible for the unduly slow processing of the terrorists’ change of visa status applications. In addition to allowing the terrorists to stay longer in the U.S., this slowness and incompetence resulted in the embarrassing mailing out of the terrorists’ student visas long after the attacks of 9/11. Thus, a stated goal of the USCIS is to promote national security by speeding up the immigration and naturalization process.
In addition, the USCIS seeks to improve customer services. The INS was infamous for its user interface or lack thereof, smacking of a belabored, inefficient government bureaucracy in the eyes of hopeful immigration petitioners. To help develop a positive image and an amicable relationship with petitioners, the USCIS introduced its online appointment scheduling service, INFOPASS.
A third improvement of the USCIS over INS is the division of responsibilities. Before, the INS was responsible for document processing as well as enforcement. To remedy its perceived failure to enforce, the Bush Administration delegated all immigration enforcement authority to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP). In addition, the USCIS would be under the enforcement-oriented Department of Homeland Security (DHS), in order to ensure that USCIS would continue to act in the promotion, and not the hindrance, of national security.
An interesting thing about USCIS is that almost all of its funding comes from the immigration petitioners themselves in the payment of fees. Therefore, the USCIS is no longer a drain on the taxpayers’ wallets. The USCIS offers an interactive website where immigrants can start the petition process, research all laws relevant to their case, check on the status of pending cases, and update their personal information.
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Last Modified: 05-11-2009 04:37 PM PDT
