[House Hearing, 115 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
IMMIGRATION BENEFITS VETTING: EXAMINING CRITICAL WEAKNESSES IN USCIS
SYSTEMS
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON
OVERSIGHT AND
MANAGEMENT EFFICIENCY
of the
COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
MARCH 16, 2017
__________
Serial No. 115-8
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Homeland Security
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__________
COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY
Michael T. McCaul, Texas, Chairman
Lamar Smith, Texas Bennie G. Thompson, Mississippi
Peter T. King, New York Sheila Jackson Lee, Texas
Mike Rogers, Alabama James R. Langevin, Rhode Island
Jeff Duncan, South Carolina Cedric L. Richmond, Louisiana
Tom Marino, Pennsylvania William R. Keating, Massachusetts
Lou Barletta, Pennsylvania Donald M. Payne, Jr., New Jersey
Scott Perry, Pennsylvania Filemon Vela, Texas
John Katko, New York Bonnie Watson Coleman, New Jersey
Will Hurd, Texas Kathleen M. Rice, New York
Martha McSally, Arizona J. Luis Correa, California
John Ratcliffe, Texas Val Butler Demings, Florida
Daniel M. Donovan, Jr., New York Nanette Diaz Barragan, California
Mike Gallagher, Wisconsin
Clay Higgins, Louisiana
John H. Rutherford, Florida
Thomas A. Garrett, Jr., Virginia
Brian K. Fitzpatrick, Pennsylvania
Brendan P. Shields, Staff Director
Kathleen Crooks Flynn, Deputy Chief Counsel
Michael S. Twinchek, Chief Clerk
Hope Goins, Minority Staff Director
------
SUBCOMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND MANAGEMENT EFFICIENCY
Scott Perry, Pennsylvania, Chairman
Jeff Duncan, South Carolina J. Luis Correa, California
Tom Marino, Pennsylvania Kathleen M. Rice, New York
John Ratcliffe, Texas Nanette Diaz Barragan, California
Clay Higgins, Louisiana Bennie G. Thompson, Mississippi
Michael T. McCaul, Texas (ex (ex officio)
officio)
Ryan Consaul, Subcommittee Staff Director
Erica D. Woods, Interim Subcommittee Minority Staff Director
C O N T E N T S
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Page
Statements
The Honorable Scott Perry, a Representative in Congress From the
State of Pennsylvania, and Chairman, Subcommittee on Oversight
and Management Efficiency:
Oral Statement................................................. 1
Prepared Statement............................................. 3
The Honorable J. Luis Correa, a Representative in Congress From
the State of California, and Ranking Member, Subcommittee on
Oversight and Management Efficiency:
Oral Statement................................................. 4
Prepared Statement............................................. 6
The Honorable Bennie G. Thompson, a Representative in Congress
From the State of Mississippi, and Ranking Member, Committee on
Homeland Security:
Prepared Statement............................................. 7
Witnesses
Ms. Lori Scialabba, Acting Director, U.S. Citizenship and
Immigration Services, U.S. Department of Homeland Security:
Oral Statement................................................. 8
Prepared Statement............................................. 11
Ms. Carol C. Harris, Director, Information Technology Acquisition
Management Issues, U.S. Government Accountability Office:
Oral Statement................................................. 14
Prepared Statement............................................. 16
Mr. John Roth, Inspector General, U.S. Department of Homeland
Security:
Oral Statement................................................. 28
Prepared Statement............................................. 30
For the Record
The Honorable Nanette Diaz Barragan, a Representative in Congress
From the State of California:
USCIS Will Temporarily Suspend Premium Processing for All H-1B
Petitions.................................................... 46
Appendix
Questions From Subcommittee Chairman Scott Perry for Lori
Scialabba...................................................... 55
Questions From Ranking Member Bennie G. Thompson for Lori
Scialabba...................................................... 56
Questions From Chairman Scott Perry for Carol C. Harris.......... 57
Questions From Ranking Member Bennie G. Thompson for Carol C.
Harris......................................................... 61
Questions From Chairman Scott Perry for John Roth................ 67
Questions From Ranking Member Bennie G. Thompson for John Roth... 68
IMMIGRATION BENEFITS VETTING: EXAMINING CRITICAL WEAKNESSES IN USCIS
SYSTEMS
----------
Thursday, March 16, 2017
U.S. House of Representatives,
Committee on Homeland Security,
Subcommittee on Oversight and
Management Efficiency,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:34 a.m., in
room HVC-210, Capitol Visitors Center, Hon. Scott Perry
(Chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Present: Representatives Perry, Duncan, Ratcliffe, Higgins,
Correa, Rice, and Barragan.
Mr. Perry. The Committee on Homeland Security Subcommittee
on Oversight and Management Efficiency will come to order.
The purpose of this hearing is to examine weaknesses in
critical systems and processes at the Department of Homeland
Security, or DHS's U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services,
the USCIS, that vet and adjudicate immigrant and nonimmigrant
applications.
The Chair now recognizes himself for an opening statement.
Last month this subcommittee held a hearing on the
challenges faced by the Department of Homeland Security, DHS,
in reining in--correction--bureaucratic waste, inefficiency,
and mismanagement. In today's heightened threat environment DHS
must have necessary systems in place to execute its mission,
especially with regard to immigrant vetting.
The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services
plays an essential role in processing millions of applications
each year for people requesting permanent or temporary entry
into the United States. However, watch dogs repeatedly voice
concerns about USCIS's management of the critical information
technology systems used to process these applications and found
instances of fraud in everything from asylum to immigration
investor applications.
Today's hearing will focus on findings from the DHS Office
of Inspector General, the OIG; and the Government
Accountability Office, the GAO; on USCIS's I.T. systems and the
security risk from USCIS's failure to manage these efforts
effectively.
For example, in the last 6 months alone the OIG reported
that USCIS should halt its plan to process naturalization
applications through its primary system, the Electronic
Immigration System, or ELIS, due to security concerns related
to inadequate applicant background checks. I mean that is
breathtaking: Told them to stop using its primary system for
security concerns related to inadequate applicant background
checks in this environment.
USCIS erroneously issued about 20,000 green cards due to
design and functionality problems with ELIS. USCIS granted
citizenship to at least 858 individuals who had been ordered
deported or removed under another identity because their
digital fingerprint records were unavailable in the systems
maintained by DHS and the FBI.
Thing is on its own over here. Sorry.
USCIS's ineptitude inadvertently may have granted illegal
aliens, criminals, or even terrorists citizenship or permanent
residency, thereby putting American lives directly at risk. But
the problems don't end there.
In 2015 the GAO reported that USCIS could not adequately
detect fraud in asylum or immigration investor applications due
to deficiencies in the ELIS system. GAO also reported that
delayed implementation of an initiative aimed at automating
paper-based application processes, called the Transformation
Program, posed problems for identifying fraud.
The GAO and the OIG further found that USCIS cannot ensure
that applicants are vetted adequately. I mean, I just found
that--I just find that astounding in the context that we
currently live in regarding vetting--cannot ensure that
applicants are vetted adequately because of the problems with
the Transformation Program and related system.
In fact, the GAO and the OIG collectively made over 54
recommendations in 12 separate reports to address significant
challenges implementing the Transformation Program.
Unfortunately, after investing 11 years and about $1.4
billion, USCIS has very little to show for its efforts.
Taxpayers absolutely deserve more than a program that is a
poster child for I.T. mismanagement and just waste. I mean, 11
years and $1.4 billion.
I gotta tell you, I am just going to go off the script here
a little bit. If we handed this issue to any--I really think
any national company that we have in your town, you know, I can
name a few but I don't want to in my own town, but just pick
any big national company that you are familiar with their logo
and said, ``We need an information system to track these
individuals that we are involved with, whether it is customers,
whether it is vendors, or whatever.''
It wouldn't take 11 years and $1.4 billion and still have
nothing to show for it--nothing functional. If it did they
wouldn't be in business anymore, right?
Individually any of these reports would be alarming, but
together they indicate systemic weaknesses in the way USCIS
vets and processes immigrant application. The risks to National
security are breathtaking and unacceptable.
Perhaps equally concerning, however, is that USCIS at times
has failed to take seriously these watch dog findings.
In March 2016 the Inspector General Roth wrote the
following to the director of USCIS with regard to the
Transformation Program--I am going to read your statement: ``I
would be remiss if I did not take this opportunity to express
my disappointment at the tone and substance of your office's
response to the audit report as well as audit staff efforts
throughout this project. This is our sixth review of a deeply
troubled program, which has, over its life, wasted hundreds of
millions of dollars.
``USCIS has continually minimized the shortcomings of the
program and resisted independent oversight. Non-concurrence of
this nature with our recommendations does not appear rational.
It is contrary to Department policy on audit resolution and
suggests continued effort to promote disagreement for its own
sake rather than collaboration toward the shared goal of
promoting effectiveness and efficiency in Department
operations.'' That ends the statement.
Ineffective program management is one thing and has a clear
solution. But altogether more concerning is a culture resistant
to oversight and solutions, particularly when it provides a
path forward and recommendations for improvements.
Ms. Scialabba, I hope I have your commitment today and the
commitment of your successor, when named, that the USCIS is
willing to work constructively with the GAO, the OIG, and the
Congress to correct long-standing deficiencies--long-standing
deficiencies.
Management malpractice is simply unacceptable, but
especially when criminals and terrorists seek to exploit any
vulnerability in our system. We are absolutely, as Americans,
we are relying on USCIS to ensure these enemies aren't allowed
into our country.
The Chair now recognizes the Ranking Minority Member of the
subcommittee, the gentleman from California, Mr. Correa, for
his statement.
[The statement of Chairman Perry follows:]
Statement of Chairman Scott Perry
March 16, 2017
Last month, this subcommittee held a hearing on the challenges
faced by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in reining in
bureaucratic waste, inefficiency, and mismanagement. In today's
heightened threat environment, DHS must have necessary systems in place
to execute its mission--especially with regard to immigrant vetting.
The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS)
plays an essential role in processing millions of applications each
year for people requesting permanent or temporary entry into the United
States. However, watch dogs repeatedly voice concerns about USCIS
management of the critical information technology (IT) systems used to
process these applications, and found instances of fraud in everything
from asylum to immigrant investor applications.
Today's hearing will focus on findings from the DHS Office of
Inspector General (OIG) and the Government Accountability Office (GAO)
on USCIS's IT systems and the security risks from USCIS failure to
manage these efforts effectively. For example, in the last 6 months
alone, the OIG reported that:
USCIS should halt its plans to process naturalization
applications through its primary system, the Electronic
Immigration System (ELIS), due to security concerns related to
inadequate applicant background checks
USCIS erroneously issued about 20,000 green cards due to
design and functionality problems with ELIS, and
USCIS granted citizenship to at least 858 individuals who
had been ordered deported or removed under another identity
because their digital fingerprint records were unavailable in
systems maintained by DHS and the FBI.
USCIS's ineptitude inadvertently may have granted illegal aliens,
criminals, or even terrorists citizenship or permanent residency--
thereby putting American lives at risk.
But the problems don't end there. In 2015, GAO reported that USCIS
could not adequately detect fraud in asylum or immigrant investor
applications due to deficiencies in the ELIS system. GAO also reported
that delayed implementation of an initiative aimed at automating paper-
based application processes, called the Transformation Program, posed
problems for identifying fraud.
The GAO and OIG further found that USCIS cannot ensure that
applicants are vetted adequately because of the problems with the
Transformation Program and related system. In fact, GAO and the OIG
collectively made over 54 recommendations in 12 separate reports to
address significant challenges implementing the Transformation Program.
Unfortunately, after investing 11 years and about $1.4 billion, USCIS
has very little to show for its efforts. Taxpayers deserve more than a
program that's a poster child for IT mismanagement.
Individually, any of these reports would be alarming; but together,
they indicate systemic weaknesses in the way USCIS vets and processes
immigrant applications. The risks to National security are
breathtaking.
Perhaps equally concerning, however, is that USCIS--at times--has
failed to take seriously these watch dog findings. In March 2016,
Inspector General Roth wrote the following to the Director of USCIS
with regard to the Transformation Program:
``I would be remiss if I did not take this opportunity to express my
disappointment at the tone and substance of your office's response to
the audit report, as well as audit staff's efforts throughout this
project. This is our sixth review of a deeply troubled program which
has, over its life, wasted hundreds of millions of dollars . . . USCIS
has continually minimized the shortcomings of the program and resisted
independent oversight. Non-concurrence of this nature [with our
recommendations] does not appear rational, is contrary to Department
policy on audit resolution . . . and suggests continued effort to
promote disagreement for its own sake rather than collaboration towards
the shared goal of promoting effectiveness and efficiency in Department
operations.''
Ineffective program management is one thing--and has a clear
solution; but altogether more concerning is a culture resistant to
oversight, particularly when it provides a path forward and
recommendations for improvement. Ms. Scialabba, I hope I have your
commitment today that USCIS is willing to work constructively with GAO,
the OIG, and the Congress to correct long-standing deficiencies.
Management malpractice is unacceptable, but especially when criminals
and terrorists seek to exploit any vulnerability in our system. We're
relying on USCIS to ensure these enemies aren't allowed into our
country.
Mr. Correa. Thank you very much, Chairman Perry, for
holding this most important and timely hearing.
Thank the witnesses for being here today. Good morning.
Ms. Scialabba, I understand that you will be retiring at
the end of this month after a 33-year career. On behalf of the
folks--citizens of this great country, thank you very much for
a career. Muchas gracias. Well done.
While I appreciate your participation today in today's
proceedings, I am disappointed that the Department did not send
the USCIS chief information officer to provide the subcommittee
with direct testimony about the agency's information
challenges--I.T. challenges.
Let me go off-script here and just say that my prior life
as a California legislator I.T. was always a challenge, whether
it was trying to fix the Department of Motor Vehicles or
whatever it was. We always would contract with these companies
that are always too big to fail, and they always failed.
So I am hoping to hear your perspective and those of the
panelists here as to maybe a different approach we might be
taking in terms of purchasing our software, our information
systems, that make sense as opposed to going with the one-fits-
everything and end up with failure.
Let me go back on script. President Trump is engaged in an
active campaign at the present to change the paradigm of our
Nation's immigration system from family unification, admitting
skilled workers, protecting refugees, and promoting diversity
to a merit-based approach where only individuals deemed as
having potential to contribute to our economy would be
admitted.
So, given this paradigm, I am very surprised that the
President wants to suspend the processing of the H-1B visas. I
look forward to engaging you about this decision that no longer
offers these applicants--very skilled applicants--a shorter
wait time for their program in order to be admitted into the
United States.
I also would like to hear your comments and engage you on
the Muslim ban order. Under the ban not only are individuals
from six majority-Muslim nations prohibited from receiving
visas to travel to the United States, but also all refugee
processing has been suspended.
Given the critical role the USCIS plays in refugee
processing, which does include a vetting process, and which I
believe is probably one of the best if not the best in the
world, I would like to ask what else can we do to better vet
these individuals, these refugees, as they come to the United
States?
One of my prior lives I did some work with the U.S.
Department of State at Foggy Bottom, and I can tell you those
people, when I worked with them, were some of the most
qualified, most educated, most highly-skilled Federal workers
that I have come across. So, given their qualifications, given
our vetting process, what else can we do to further vet these
individuals that we are not doing today?
Also, I am very concerned with the President's proposed
budget, which is expected to prioritize building a wall on our
Southern Border. I am concerned not because of the wall itself
but because of historical perspective.
Twenty years ago our country was very successful in
stopping the drug trade through the Caribbean; that only
shifted the drugs and other negative elements through the
inland.
Now we are proposing to strengthen the Southern Border
without looking at the Northern Border.
In this committee--not this subcommittee, but in this
committee--recently our admiral of the Coast Guard stated that
last year the U.S. Coast Guard identified 500 special interest
targets moving from South America into the United States. Of
those 500 targets, none of them could be touched because the
Coast Guard lacked the resources to stop them from coming to
the United States.
Yet, under our President's budget we are going to cut the
Coast Guard's budget by 10 percent. Not quite sure how that
helps stop drugs coming into this country.
Next, as you know, in 2006 USCIS initiated an effort to
modernize our paper-based immigration processing system via the
Transformation Program. Again, I look forward to hearing from
you how we can make this a smoother system. Personally, about
20 years ago I had the honor of processing my uncle--God rest
in peace--his citizenship application.
His attorney filled out the application once, filled it
twice, and then a third time. Then on the third time, as an
attorney I personally drove to the Los Angeles office to find
out what was going on.
A very nice immigration officer took me aside and said,
``Let's see if we can find that third application.'' They found
half of it; the other half was missing. Literally they had
taken my file that I put together and they had--somebody had
torn it in half or half of it had been lost.
Thank goodness that immigration officer said, ``Sir, step
aside over here. Here is a new application. I am going to give
you 3 hours. Go into the cafeteria, fill it out, then come
back.''
So I think it is important that we go digital, that we
streamline the application process. But again, coming back to
my prior statements, which are how do we come up with a better
purchasing plan for your Department in terms of I.T.? Instead
of going out and signing these big contracts with these big
firms that are too big to fail, how we can break it down into
smaller pieces and be able to digest our needs in terms of your
agency.
With that being said, I look forward to hearing the
testimony not only from you but from the other witnesses how we
can make Government more effective, more efficient; make sure,
as our Chairman has said, those individuals that are not--
should not be eligible to become citizens or residents don't
become residents; and those that have worked hard to earn those
privileges should have the right to have them as quickly as
possible.
Thank you very much.
[The statement of Ranking Member Correa follows:]
Statement of Ranking Member J. Luis Correa
March 16, 2017
President Trump is engaged in an active campaign to flip the
paradigm for our Nation's immigration system from family reunification,
admitting skilled workers, protecting refugees, and promoting diversity
to a merit-based approach where only individuals deemed as having
potential to contribute to our economy would be admitted.
Given where this President wants to take immigration, I was
surprised and disappointed by the announcement earlier this month by
the Trump administration that it was suspending premium processing of
H-1B visas.
I look forward to engaging with Ms. Scialabba about this decision
to no longer offer applicants the option of shorter wait times for a
program that helps bring in skilled foreign workers in a range of
industries, from technology to health care.
I also look forward to engaging the witnesses on the implementation
of the proposed ``Muslim Ban'' Executive Order.
The ``Muslim Ban,'' which was slated to begin today, was blocked by
two Federal judges hours before its commencement.
Under the ban, not only are individuals from six majority Muslim
nations prohibited from receiving visas to travel to the United States,
but also all refugee processing is suspended.
Given the critical role that USCIS plays in refugee processing,
which includes a vetting process that is arguably the most security-
forward in the world--I look forward to engaging with Ms. Scialabba on
the prospect of a refugee moratorium.
It is not lost on me that even as the President looks to suspend
visas to entire populations of people to keep his ``Muslim Ban''
campaign promise and promotes the idea that our immigration system
should be merit-based only, the company that bears his name is seeking
visas for seasonal low-skilled foreign workers from USCIS.
I am concerned that the President's forthcoming budget, which is
expected to prioritize building a border wall on the Southwest Border
and covering immigration enforcement and detention costs for millions
of undocumented immigrants will give USCIS--a largely fee-based
agency--a short shrift.
In 2006, USCIS initiated efforts to modernize its paper-based
immigration processing system via the Transformation Program.
The Transformation Program has been plagued with issues, including
implementation schedule delays, system user errors, and increased costs
due to strategy changes.
A component of the Transformation Program, the Electronic
Immigration System better known as ELIS, is the subject of much
concern, after it was discovered by the DHS Inspector General that
approximately 19,000 green cards had been issued in error, primarily
due to technical and functional deficiencies.
As a result, Inspector General Roth has advised USCIS to use its
legacy system, not ELIS, until certain improvements and requirements
have been met.
In numerous reports, both the Government Accountability Office and
the Inspector General have stated that USCIS needs better management,
resources, and planning to get this program on track.
Due to the nature and importance of this program, it is imperative
that the Department prioritizes and improves the Transformation
Program.
I am concerned that policy changes advanced by this administration
will result in reduced fees--fees that are essential to funding USCIS
operation and cover its critical IT modernization efforts.
The Department cannot achieve long-needed IT enhancement without
necessary resources.
In fact, in its High-Risk Update released last month, GAO
acknowledged that DHS needs to ``make additional progress in allocating
resources in certain areas, such as staffing for acquisition and
information technology positions.''
This progress GAO speaks of simply cannot be accomplished when
personnel are unavailable due to hiring freezes and resources are
diverted for building walls.
Further, USCIS uses carryover funds from premium processing fees to
pay for the Transformation Program.
These resources will undoubtedly be less given the suspension of H-
1B premium processing.
I look forward to hearing from our witnesses today an updated
status on the Transformation Program and the improvements that are
needed to remedy this program, particularly as it relates to better
management and necessary resources.
Mr. Perry. Chair thanks the gentleman.
Other Members of the subcommittee are reminded that opening
statements may be submitted for the record.
[The statement of Ranking Member Thompson follows:]
Statement of Ranking Member Bennie G. Thompson
March 16, 2017
Too often, this subcommittee convenes to discuss failures in IT
modernization at the Department of Homeland Security.
At some point, the Department must hold itself to a higher standard
of performance and fix its inability to accurately deliver a program as
promised, on time and on budget.
Even today, the Department feels the need to not hold itself
accountable.
The Department chose not to send the USCIS Chief Information
Officer, the exact individual responsible for IT functions at the
component, to answer important questions on the status of IT at USCIS.
It is my understanding that the subcommittee just learned of this
decision this past Friday.
Instead, representing USCIS today is Acting Director Lori
Scialabba, who has provided her resignation to the Department.
For over a decade, DHS has made attempts to modernize its paper-
based immigration process by developing an on-line tool that allows
applicants to apply and track their status on-line, known as the
Transformation Program.
Unfortunately, the program has experienced a range of issues,
including increased costs, system outages, and application processing
errors.
As such, the Transformation Program has been the subject of
countless GAO reports, Inspector General investigations, and even most
recently, an Inspector General management alert.
The Transformation Program's main component, ELIS, has been
suspended due to system deficiencies, including an error that resulted
in 175 cases moving forward for processing despite incomplete
background and security checks.
These are major errors that cannot be overlooked or avoided,
especially at a time when this administration is forcing a range of
changes in policies and priorities for USCIS.
For instance, the President wants to shift our Nation's immigration
system from family reunification and admitting skilled workers and
protecting refugees to a merit-based approach.
The President has suspended premium processing of H-1B visas, which
offers a shorter wait time for foreign workers in a range of
industries.
The President, through his proposed ``Muslim Ban,'' looks to
prohibit individuals from six majority Muslim nations from receiving
visas to travel to the United States.
Also, the President's ``Muslim Ban'' would suspend refugee
processing, causing America to turn its back on the most vulnerable.
Thankfully, yesterday evening and this morning two Federal judges
ruled to freeze the Executive Order, stating the new order failed to
pass legal muster at this stage.
Interestingly, while the President tries to suspend visas to entire
populations and attempts to stifle our economy by prohibiting foreign
workers from getting visas quickly, companies that bear his name still
seek visas for seasonal, low-skilled workers.
Moreover, this administration's misplaced budgetary priorities
focus on building a wall along the Southwest Border and heightened
immigration enforcement and detention.
Prioritizing a wall, which does not keep us more safe and secure,
will undoubtedly divert resources away from IT at the Department.
I am concerned that this administration's policies will result in
reduced fees that are essential to funding USCIS operations. Therefore,
keeping the Transformation Program on a lifeline.
I look forward to hearing from our witnesses today on how this
administration's ill-advised policies will ultimately affect USCIS.
Mr. Perry. We are pleased to have a distinguished panel of
witnesses before us today. The witnesses' entire written
statements will appear in the record.
The Chair will introduce the witnesses first and then
recognize each of you for your testimony.
Ms. Lori Scialabba is acting director at U.S. Citizen and--
Citizenship and Immigration Services, or USCIS. Previously she
served as the USCIS deputy director since May 2011. Prior to
USCIS, Ms. Scialabba was on the Board of Immigration Appeals in
the Executive Office for Immigration Review, or the EOIR, in
the Justice Department.
Ms. Carol Harris is a director for information technology
acquisition management issues with the Government
Accountability Office, the GAO. Ms. Harris leads the GAO's work
for I.T. across the Federal Government.
Welcome.
The Honorable John Roth assumed the post of inspector
general for the Department of Homeland Security in March 2014.
Previously Mr. Roth served as the director of the Office of
Criminal Investigations at the Food and Drug Administration,
and as an assistant U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of
Michigan. He is here often.
We welcome you all. Thanks for being here today.
The Chair now recognizes Ms. Scialabba for an opening
statement.
Make sure you press--thank you, ma'am.
STATEMENT OF LORI SCIALABBA, ACTING DIRECTOR, U.S. CITIZENSHIP
AND IMMIGRATION SERVICES, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY
Ms. Scialabba. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Perry, Ranking Member Correa, and Members of the
subcommittee, thank you for this opportunity to discuss
information technology systems at United States Citizenship and
Immigration Services.
As you said, my name is Lori Scialabba. I am the acting
director of USCIS. I have almost 33 years of Government
service, beginning with the Department of Justice in 1985.
During my career at Justice I served in a number of capacities
leading up to my appointment by Attorney General John Ashcroft
in 2002 to chair the Department of Justice Board of Immigration
Appeals.
In 2006 I moved to USCIS within the Department of Homeland
Security to serve as the associate director for refugee,
asylum, and international operations. I also had served as the
advisor to DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff, and more recently I
served as the U.S. deputy director and twice as the acting
director.
In all of these roles I have gained a deeper appreciation
for the complexity of the work accomplished by our employees
and required by the immigration system. I have also seen how
the right technology can help accomplish our mission.
Yet, bringing our Nation's legacy paper-based immigration
system into the digital age remains a substantial work in
progress, and it is not simply an I.T. challenge.
The United States has the largest immigration system in the
world. In fiscal year 2016 alone USCIS received over 8 million
applications filed for people wanting to live, work, invest,
study, and seek protection in the United States.
As a component of DHS we have a dual mission. That is to
keep America safe and to ensure the integrity of the
immigration system.
I note that this hearing was called to focus on findings by
the DHS's Office of Inspector General and the Government
Accountability Office, including findings about our
Transformation Program. The OIG and GAO reports have been
helpful in providing USCIS with an independent assessment of
our efforts and we have accepted recommendations that will
improve the performance and efficiency of our systems.
Indeed, in many cases we had already identified some of the
improvements and begun implementation even before the reports
were formally issued. It is no secret the transformation has
not been easy. The program was launched in 2005, 2006 time
frame with the goal of thoroughly modernizing decades of old
I.T. systems.
The effort began the same way as other large Government
I.T. projects traditionally start, with a large contract
awarded to a single system integrator to manage virtually
everything within that project. It is known as the waterfall
method. It is the method that the Government has used for quite
some time, where all the improvements come all at once.
However, before the contractor delivered the first release
in May 2012, we realized it was not going to work. It was not
going to address our agency's needs. It actually slowed our
work down, what they rolled out.
Given our experience with this first release of ELIS, the
Electronic Immigration System, we changed our strategy. We
brought in the same agile development that you mentioned that
are methods that are used by leading companies in the private
sector.
Rather than investing years on a single contractor and
building a monolithic system, we decided to move to smaller
contractors and have the Government serve as the integrator and
roll out small bits of code at a time more rapidly. We hired
from the private sector a chief information officer who has a
strong background in agile development, and we also developed a
more standard approach that incorporates more open-source
frameworks and nonproprietary software.
Finally, we decided to move the public cloud, where we
procure storage space and we serve on secure servers to store
our data. These changes have enabled us to build more quickly,
operate more efficiently, and detect and fix bugs along the
way.
Since 2016 we have added five product lines to ELIS. Of
course, just like any other major I.T. launch, we anticipated
that when we moved to this--when we moved last year to bring
one of our most complicated products, the application for
naturalization, the N-400, into the system that there may be
issues.
So USCIS leadership team was prepared to pause the roll-out
if necessary, and that is exactly what we did when several
problems surfaced with the N-400. I want you to understand,
though, that the N-400 applications that were started in ELIS
are not sitting idle. We continue to process them, and we are
conducting 100 percent quality assurance reviews of the text
background checks that we used to vet our applications.
With regards to the OIG and GAO recommendations, I would
like to provide some information on the actions that we are
taking consistent with those findings.
First, we incorporated the Transformation Program into our
Office of Immigration Technology. This has allowed us to
leverage the knowledge and talent of both of those offices.
This is a better fit for oversight and for coordination
purposes.
We are also clarifying the scope of the program, especially
when it overlaps with other agency initiatives. The goal is to
focus on the benefit types that constitute the great majority
of our work in order to be more responsive to the needs of our
applicants, petitioners, and employees. We are working to fix
the issues that prevented us from continuing to ingest the new
naturalization cases into ELIS, and I am pleased with the
progress that we are making.
We are also working with USCIS leadership to clarify
specific outcomes that we want to achieve with each process we
bring into the electronic environment. I wanted to mention,
too, that we have right now 25 percent of our caseload is
actually in ELIS and is being processed in ELIS.
We are continuing to devise metrics and monitoring tools
that will allow us to measure our success in accomplishing
these outcomes. Finally, we are establishing uniform standards
for what constitutes a well-tested piece of code, and we are
adopting more of the development tools used by major companies.
As I prepare to conclude more than 3 decades of Government
service, I am pleased and encouraged by the new direction that
we are taking in building a system that can meet today's needs
and risks and adapt enough to whatever lies ahead. We are
fortunate that we have an extremely dedicated, extremely
talented team addressing the issues raised by the inspector
general and GAO.
The American people deserve a 21st-Century immigration
system that enables us to provide timely and accurate decisions
while safeguarding the public and National security.
Again, I want to thank you for the opportunity to appear
today, and I look forward to addressing your questions.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Scialabba follows:]
Prepared Statement of Lori Scialabba
March 16, 2017
Chairman Perry, Ranking Member Correa, and Members of the
subcommittee, thank you for this opportunity to discuss information
technology systems at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services
(USCIS). I am Lori Scialabba, the acting director of USCIS.
Bringing our Nation's legacy paper-based immigration system into
the digital age remains a substantial work in progress. And it's not
simply an IT challenge. The United States has the largest immigration
system in the world. In fiscal year 2016 alone, USCIS received over 8
million petitions and applications filed for people wanting to live
here, work here, study here, invest here, bring foreign relatives or
adopted children here, or become citizens. As a component of the
Department of Homeland Security (DHS), USCIS has a dual mission--to
keep Americans safe and ensure the integrity of our immigration system
as we fulfill our promise as a Nation of immigrants.
Given today's threats, there is no higher priority for us than
continuing to expand and integrate our fraud detection and National
security operations into all areas of our work. Building a technically-
reliable electronic case management system is not enough. It must
safeguard against fraud and abuse, and ensure that immigration benefits
are not provided to individuals who wish to do us harm.
USCIS currently processes approximately 25 percent of casework
through computer files rather than thick folders of paper. That's a
significant accomplishment given our paper-bound history. We are
committed to expanding our digital capabilities, and taking IT
techniques from the private sector and adapting them to the immigration
context wherever possible.
Per your invitation letter, you have called this hearing to focus
on findings by DHS's Office of Inspector General (OIG) and the
Government Accountability Office (GAO), including findings about our
Transformation program. I would like to note that 2 months ago, in
January, the Transformation program became part of the USCIS Office of
Information Technology (OIT), which means that our Chief Information
Officer now has the responsibility to oversee its day-to-day operations
to ensure it delivers value for our investment. And by that I mean the
investment of fees paid by those seeking immigration benefits, as USCIS
is almost entirely funded by fees.
Over the last few months, the OIT team has conducted various
internal assessments of the Transformation program's status, and have
carefully reviewed the independent assessments that were conducted by
the OIG and GAO. Based on the information gathered and knowledge of IT
industry best practices, we have assembled a plan designed to improve
the program's performance and ensure that it delivers on its intended
outcomes. This approach will be discussed later in my testimony.
Since initiating this effort USCIS has worked hard to bring
contemporary IT practices into our environment, not just at USCIS, but
around DHS and the rest of the Federal Government. The Transformation
program is an excellent opportunity to take the current, most promising
practices of industry and apply them to a large Government need.
Transformation began in 2005-2006 as a USCIS program whose
intention was to thoroughly modernize IT systems. The program was
created to move the agency from a paper-based process to an electronic
process, improve the efficiency of adjudication, provide better service
to those seeking benefits, and adopt a person-centric view of our data.
Such a modern and efficient system would ultimately help improve our
National security. The original scope and purpose of the Transformation
program was broad and vast. Unfortunately these broad intentions have
made it difficult for the program to focus on specific business
objectives, and to make good prioritization decisions about where to
focus resources.
The program began with a large contract to a single system
integrator to manage virtually all aspects of the Transformation
effort. In addition to building an extensive IT system, called the
Electronic Immigration System, or ELIS, this contractor was tasked with
leading business process re-engineering, stakeholder communications,
training, requirements elicitation, and of course all of the
development coding and testing. When the system integrator finally
delivered the first release of the product, in May 2012, it was a
radically scoped-down version of our intent and accomplished only a
small subset of the work of a relatively narrow part of the agency's
day-to-day mission. It actually slowed the agency's work.
Given USCIS's negative experience with this first release of ELIS,
we decided to make a number of changes to our strategy. First, we
decided to replace the single large system integrator with several
smaller contractors, and have the Government serve as the integrator.
We devised a new contracting approach that encouraged good performance
by the contractors through continual competition for additional work
from us. Second, and very importantly, we changed to an agile
development approach that allowed us to see frequent, finished work
from the contractors, so we could make sure the project was always
moving forward. With an agile approach, rather than waiting a long time
for the product to be completely built and delivered before discovering
if it works or satisfies the agency's needs, the system is constructed
in pieces, with each part tested to make sure it works well with the
other pieces. Third, we realized that the original design of the system
was one of the reasons development was slow and problematic. It was
based on integrating about 30 different proprietary products--and it
turned out that they didn't work together very well. So we decided to
switch to a more standard approach, based on open source frameworks
based on non-proprietary software. Finally, we decided to move to the
public cloud; in other words, procuring storage space on secure servers
to store some of our data as many Federal agencies now do. These
changes have enabled us to operate more efficiently, build more
quickly, and detect and fix bugs along the way.
It took several years to fully implement these changes, but with
the new design, contracts, process, and the cloud environment, the
program began to deliver new functionality on a regular cadence. In
fact, it currently releases small pieces of new functionality
approximately four times a week--a far cry from the old way of doing
things, where releases came more on the order of annually--or in the
case of Transformation, about 6 years for the first release.
In November 2015, the program first launched its electronic version
of the Application for Replacement Green Card (Form I-90) in the
redesigned version of the system. This was a major milestone, as the
green card replacement accounts for about 10 percent of the agency's
workload. It was followed, in 2016, by electronic processing of
Applications for Temporary Protected Status (Form I-821) and requests
for Consideration of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (Form I-
821D), as well as making the program the only source for collection of
the required immigrant fee for green card processing. Altogether, these
lines of business account for approximately 25 percent of the agency's
workload. It is important to know that ``electronic processing'' does
not mean that a computer makes the adjudication. It means that scanned
versions of immigration applications and requests and supporting
documents are ingested into our systems so an officer can view and
process them on a computer. Our officers make the final decisions with
the help of this electronic processing system.
In 2016, we moved to take the next step and bring one of the
agency's most important, but also most complicated, products into ELIS:
The Application for Naturalization (Form N-400). We anticipated there
could be issues, as there often are with any major IT launch. Our
agency leadership was prepared to suspend the roll-out if necessary,
and that is exactly what USCIS did when problems surfaced after the
launch. In August 2016, we returned to ingesting newly filed N-400's
into our legacy system, known as CLAIMS 4, to minimize any disruption
in processing of naturalization applications while we corrected
identified systems issues.
As the Inspector General is aware, we continue to process the
approximately 240,000 N-400 naturalization cases that were started in
ELIS. They are not sitting idle while we await systems modifications.
In order to ensure the integrity of the ELIS process, we are conducting
100 percent quality assurance checks of TECS background checks in two
ways--once through ELIS and again outside of ELIS--and then comparing
the results to ensure consistency. In addition, we continue to monitor
all of the background check functionality, including FBI name checks,
and resolve any anomalies as they occur. USCIS has also recently
established a Background Check Working Group to continually evaluate
security check procedures and to recommend optimal background check
approaches to be adopted agency-wide.
USCIS has been adamant that new work will not shift back into ELIS
until improvements are made to how ELIS handles naturalization
processing. These include streamlining the printing and scanning
processes, establishing a ``contingency plan'' for continuing to
conduct interviews even if there is an ELIS outage, and formalizing
some measure of the above-described redundancy in our background
checks. It should be noted that the Inspector General validated our
internal recommendations in the January 19, 2017 management alert
(``U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services' Use of the Electronic
Immigration System for Naturalization Benefits Processing'').
Taking a wider view of building the infrastructure for a modern
immigration system, USCIS agrees with the July 2016 GAO assessment that
``Regarding software development, the Transformation program has
produced some software increments, but is not consistently following
its own guidance and leading processes.'' GAO found that Transformation
program practices were beginning to diverge from those used by leading
companies. In my view, Transformation is one of the most advanced
Government programs in using contemporary IT delivery practices. But
this is not an area where you can go halfway and get good results.
GAO recognized that Transformation's frequent use of automated
testing, and continuous build and integration, were good practices that
provided an ability to deliver quickly and consistently. The
Transformation program, GAO also pointed out, ``has established an
environment that allows for effective systems integration and testing
and has planned for and performed some system testing. However, the
program needs to improve its approach to system testing to ensure that
USCIS ELIS meets its intended goals and is consistent with agency
guidance and leading practices.'' GAO found discrepancies between some
of the practices being used by the Transformation program and the
guidance issued by OIT. Now that Transformation has been incorporated
into OIT as of January of this year, we will ensure appropriate
oversight of the program. As part of OIT, Transformation will be
assisted by having full access to OIT's developers, applications, and
systems already in existence within the agency.
Although the GAO and OIG findings have been helpful to us in
diagnosing issues in the program, I would like to update the
subcommittee on two points. First, the Inspector General correctly
pointed out a number of problems in the ELIS I-90 (replacement green
card) release. However, the OIG study was conducted shortly after the
launch of the electronic I-90, a time when it is typical for IT systems
to have kinks that need to be worked out. Notably we implemented an
asynchronous handoff process to handle potentially sporadic
connectivity between ELIS and the Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) to
ensure timeouts between the systems would not inadvertently result in
duplicate cards being produced. Second, in regard to concerns about
some green cards being mailed to wrong addresses, we are now
implementing a fix to enable applicants to answer a series of questions
to verify their identity in order to update their address on-line. This
fix will help so that changes of address are made by the applicant as
early in the process as possible in order to avoid instances of green
cards being mailed to an applicant's prior address.
Also, the OIG report provided data on three cost estimates which
could be read to infer that the cost of the program has been increasing
over time, beginning with $536 million in the original Acquisition
Plan, $2.1 billion in the original life-cycle cost estimate, and
finally $3.1 billion in the revised life-cycle cost estimate. It is
important to clarify that the first cost estimate of $536 million was
based on the original development and support contracts awarded for
system development under the previous waterfall approach, and included
a base contract period of performance of 4 months followed by five
option periods covering a total of 5 years and 1 month. It was not an
approved, finalized cost estimate that covered the traditional
investment and operations and maintenance periods found in a life-cycle
cost estimate. In contrast, the $2.1 billion cost estimate was based on
a life-cycle cost estimate that included system development and
maintenance costs covering a 16-year period from 2006 through 2022.
Finally, the $3.1 billion cost estimate was based on an updated life-
cycle cost estimate that also included system development and
maintenance costs, but was expanded to cover a 27-year period from 2006
through 2033.
Finally, I would like to report on some of the actions USCIS is
taking that are consistent with the OIG and GAO findings to improve the
performance of the program:
USCIS recently incorporated the Transformation program into
the Office of Information Technology and has made
organizational changes so that we can bring the many technical
skills and processes of OIT to bear on the program.
USCIS is clarifying the scope of the program, especially
where it overlaps with other agency initiatives. The program is
focusing on the lines of business that will truly transform the
agency.
We are working to fix the five issues specifically
identified by USCIS that prevented us from continuing to move
forward with accepting new naturalization cases into ELIS. We
are making good progress and expect those issues to be resolved
in the near future.
We are working with DHS to clarify the specific outcomes
that we want to achieve with each process we bring into an
electronic environment. And we are devising metrics and
monitoring tools that will allow us to measure our success in
accomplishing these outcomes.
We are also establishing uniform standards for what
constitutes a well-tested piece of code, and adopting more
development processes similar to those used by major companies.
We are fortunate to have an extremely dedicated, extremely talented
team at work on the program. We hope that the changes we are making
will address the important points raised by the Inspector General and
GAO, so that the program can truly transform the way our agency
processes immigration benefits and services.
Again, thank you for this opportunity to discuss what USCIS is
doing to support the mission of Homeland Security. I am happy to
address your questions.
Mr. Perry. Chair thanks Ms. Scialabba.
The Chair now recognizes Ms. Harris for her opening
statement.
STATEMENT OF CAROL C. HARRIS, DIRECTOR, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
ACQUISITION MANAGEMENT ISSUES, U.S. GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY
OFFICE
Ms. Harris. Chairman Perry, Ranking Member Correa, and
Members of the subcommittee, thank you for inviting us to
testify today on the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services
Transformation Program.
As requested, I will briefly summarize the findings from
our most recent reports completed at your request on this
important I.T. acquisition.
Each year USCIS processes millions of mostly paper-based
applications and petitions for more than 50 types of immigrant-
and nonimmigrant-related benefits. According to DHS, on an
average day USCIS completes 23,000 applications for various
immigration benefits and conducts 148,000 National security
background checks.
Our past work has identified lengthy backlogs of pending
applications and an inability to complete--and an inability to
comprehensively identify fraud because of the reliance on paper
files.
The Transformation Program was initiated in 2006 to address
processing inefficiencies and improve National security by
transforming the current method into an electronic account-
based system.
Among other objectives, the program is to allow applicants
to establish an account with USCIS to track and file the status
of their applications on-line.
The program's main component, the ELIS system, is to
provide case management for adjudicating immigration benefits.
ELIS relies on and interfaces with other systems that provide
additional capabilities, such as user authentication and
scheduling, to deliver end-to-end processing.
Unfortunately, this program has faced severe management and
system development challenges since its inception. This morning
I would like to highlight two key points from our reports.
First, the Transformation Program's deployment schedule is
significantly delayed, causing missed savings and deferred
mission benefits. After more than 8 years and roughly $475
million spent, USCIS abandoned the system they had initially
been pursuing in May 2016 due to its instability. This largely
occurred because the system was allowed to proceed through
development despite challenges in program management and
limited oversight.
In response to various technical issues, USCIS shifted its
acquisition approach, which resulted in the proposed
development of a new ELIS system. In April 2015 DHS and USCIS
approved the revised plan with full deployment of the new
system planned for March 2019, a delay of more than 4 years
from the initial approved baseline.
However, the new system is experiencing technical issues
and the March 2019 date is under review by USCIS and DHS and
could be pushed out even further. These delays mean legacy
systems must remain in operation until the new ELIS is
available, and the cost of maintaining those systems as of
fiscal year 2014 was about $71 million per year.
In addition, USCIS's ability to realize operational
improvements tied to the program have been deferred, including
reducing the immigration benefit backlogs through business
process change, and enhancing National security by better
authenticating users and integrating with external agency
databases.
In addition, our work on immigration fraud has shown that
USCIS's ability to systematically identify and address fraud
risks on their asylum and immigrant investor programs will be
deferred, in part because of their dependence on planned ELIS
functionality that does not yet exist.
My second point: On-going program challenges are increasing
the likelihood that the new ELIS will continue to miss cost,
schedule, and performance goals. In July 2016 we reported that
the Transformation Program was not consistently following key
practices in software development and testing, among other
things. For example, while the program has established an
environment and procedures for continuously integrating and
testing code, it was not meeting benchmarks for functional
tests and code inspection. In other words, Transformation
risked poor system performance after being released to the
public.
At the time of our report this risk was already being
realized. For example, in November and December 2015 the
program's quality assurance team reported that code quality had
become a major issue. Later, in March 2016, metrics maintained
by the program indicated that issues being encountered on the
system were increasing faster than they could be addressed.
In May 2015 we also reported that while the program's two
key governance bodies were taking actions to monitor progress
and implement corrective actions, they were not relying on
complete and accurate data to make decisions.
In light of these and other issues, we have made a total of
30 recommendations to address the Transformation Program's poor
progress and ineffective management. As of this morning, USCIS
has fully addressed 17 of them, and it will be critical for the
agency to effectively implement the remaining 13 in order to
improve Transformation's outcomes and help achieve its goals of
modernizing the paper-based immigration process, improving
customer service, and enhancing National security.
That concludes my statement, and I look forward to
addressing your questions.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Harris follows:]
Prepared Statement of Carol C. Harris
March 16, 2017
Chairman Perry, Ranking Member Correa, and Members of the
subcommittee: I am pleased to be here today to discuss the challenges
that U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has had in
developing an electronic system to support and modernize the filing and
processing of immigration and citizenship applications. As you know,
each year, USCIS, an agency within the Department of Homeland Security
(DHS), processes millions of mostly paper-based applications and
petitions for more than 50 types of immigrant and nonimmigrant-related
benefits. Having a seamless electronic system would assist the agency
in accurately processing immigration and citizenship benefits in a
timely manner to eligible applicants. Such a system would also assist
in denying benefits to those who are ineligible. In addition, the
system could help USCIS identify fraudulent and criminal activity,
essential for ensuring the integrity of the immigration process.
We have long recognized the need to improve the USCIS benefits
application and adjudication processes and underlying technology
infrastructure.\1\ For example, in May 2001, we reported that some
applications and petitions--benefit applications--took 2 years or
longer to process.\2\ This lengthy process resulted in backlogs of
pending applications. More recently, in September 2016, we reported
that USCIS was unable to comprehensively identify and address fraud
trends across the immigrant investor program in part because of its
reliance on paper-based documentation and limitations with using and
collecting that data for the program.\3\ According to an official from
USCIS's Fraud Detection and National Security Directorate, this
supporting data could be an important source for fraud indicators.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ See appendix I for related GAO products.
\2\ GAO, Immigration Benefits: Several Factors Impede Timeliness of
Application Processing, GAO-01-488 (Washington, DC: May 4, 2001).
\3\ GAO, Immigrant Investor Program: Progress Made to Detect and
Prevent Fraud, but Additional Actions Could Further Agency Efforts,
GAO-16-828 (Washington, DC: Sept. 13, 2016).
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In 2006, USCIS embarked on a major initiative, the Transformation
Program, to address processing inefficiencies and transform its current
paper-based system into an electronic account-based system. This system
was expected to incorporate electronic adjudication and account-based
case management tools, including tools that would allow applicants to
apply on-line for benefits. However, since its inception, we have
reported that the program has continually faced management and
development challenges, limiting its progress and ability to achieve
its goals of enhanced National security and system integrity, better
customer service, and operational efficiency.\4\ Over the last 10
fiscal years, we have made 30 recommendations to address weaknesses in
the program's acquisitions and operations. USCIS has fully addressed 17
of these 30 recommendations.\5\ Based in part on our concerns about the
Transformation Program, we identified it as 1 of 10 investments in need
of the most attention when we designated managing information
technology (IT) acquisitions and operations across the Federal
Government as high-risk in 2015.\6\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\4\ GAO, USCIS Transformation: Improvements to Performance, Human
Capital, and Information Technology Management Needed as Modernization
Proceeds, GAO-07-1013R (Washington, DC: July 17, 2007); Immigration
Benefits: Consistent Adherence to DHS's Acquisition Policy Could Help
Improve Transformation Program Outcomes, GAO-12-66 (Washington, DC:
Nov. 22, 2011); Immigration Benefits System: Better Informed Decision
Making Needed on Transformation Program, GAO-15-415 (Washington, DC:
May 18, 2015); Immigration Benefits System: U.S. Citizenship and
Immigration Services Can Improve Program Management, GAO-16-467
(Washington, DC: July 7, 2016).
\5\ See appendix II for the status of prior recommendations.
\6\ GAO, High-Risk Series: An Update, GAO-15-290 (Washington, DC:
Feb. 11, 2015).
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My testimony today will focus on Transformation Program cost
increases and schedule delays and program management challenges that
have contributed to increasing risks to the new system. In developing
this testimony, we relied on our previous reports, as well as
information provided by the Department on its actions in response to
our previous recommendations and on-going work. A more detailed
discussion of the objectives, scope, and methodology for this work is
included in each of the reports that are cited throughout this
statement.
All of the work on which this statement is based was conducted in
accordance with generally-accepted Government auditing standards.\7\
Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain
sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for our
findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We believe that
the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our findings and
conclusions based on our audit objectives.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\7\ A more detailed discussion of the objectives, scope, and
methodology of this work is included in each of the reports that are
cited throughout this statement. See appendix I for related GAO
products.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
background
The goals of the Transformation Program are to modernize the paper-
based immigration benefits process, enhance National security and
system integrity, and improve customer service and operational
efficiency. Established in 2006, the program comprises many systems,
each of which provides a service to facilitate operations, such as
identity management and risk and fraud analytics. The objectives of the
Transformation Program are to allow:
applicants to establish an account with USCIS to file and
track the status of the application, petition, or request on-
line;
the USCIS Electronic Immigration System (USCIS ELIS), which
is the main component of the program, to apply risk-based rules
automatically to incoming applications, petitions, and requests
to identify potentially fraudulent applications and National
security risks;
adjudicators to have electronic access to applications,
petitions, and requests, relevant policies and procedures, and
external databases;
USCIS to have management information to track and allocate
workload; and
USCIS ELIS to have electronic linkages to other agencies,
such as the Departments of Justice and State, for data-sharing
and security purposes.
As the main component of the program, USCIS ELIS is to provide case
management for adjudicating immigration benefits. USCIS ELIS relies on
and interfaces with other systems that provide additional capabilities,
such as user authentication and scheduling, to deliver end-to-end
processing. In particular, as of July 2016, the system was expected to
interface with at least 30 other systems, ranging in function from
fraud detection to law enforcement and to on-line payment.
The program expects to achieve its goals and objectives through the
delivery of five core operating requirements. These core requirements,
which are expected to collectively deliver the program's mission needs,
are: (1) Intake and account management; (2) benefits case management;
(3) electronic content management; (4) agency and knowledge management;
and (5) risk and fraud management. Table 1 describes the five core
operational requirements.
TABLE 1.--USCIS ELIS'S FIVE CORE OPERATIONAL REQUIREMENTS
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Core operational requirement Description
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Intake and PAccount PManagement.. Enable electronic submission of
completed applications and fee
payments. Enable benefit requests
submitted by paper to be
electronically transferred to USCIS
ELIS for subsequent processing.
Benefits Case Management......... Enable electronic application
tracking, and facilitate
adjudication of immigration
benefits.
Electronic Content Management.... Enable digitizing, managing, and
sharing electronic content. Includes
the feature for establishing and
managing document libraries that
support external customer needs.
Agency and PKnowledge............ Enable the alignment of resources and
tools to facilitate adjudication and
supporting processes. Management
includes features for generating
management reports and facilitating
the management of fees and customer
inquiries.
Risk and Fraud Management........ Provide the features that send,
receive, and consolidate information
required for processing and
assessing background checks based on
biographic and biometric information
and support improvements for
identifying potential fraud and
National security.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ Source: GAO analysis of USCIS documentation. GAO-17-486T
Program Governance and Oversight
The USCIS Transformation Program is governed by multiple bodies
within DHS and the program. Specifically, DHS governance bodies, such
as the Acquisition Review Board and Executive Steering Committee,
evaluate cost, schedule, and performance of a program and provide
corrective actions when needed. In addition, the Department's Office of
the Chief Information Officer and Office of Program Accountability and
Risk Management conduct oversight of individual programs, which in
turn, informs Congressional and Office of Management and Budget
oversight. For example, the Office of Program Accountability and Risk
Management develops periodic reports to ensure that various DHS
programs and their components within the agency satisfy compliance-
related mandates and improve investment management. In addition, the
Office of the Chief Information Officer performs periodic reviews that
serve as the basis for publicly-reported program ratings.\8\
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\8\ These ratings are published on the Federal IT Dashboard. In
June 2009, OMB deployed a public website known as the IT Dashboard to
improve the transparency and oversight of agencies' IT investments. The
IT Dashboard displays Federal agencies' cost, schedule, and performance
data for major Federal IT investments at Federal agencies. For each
major investment, the Dashboard provides performance ratings on cost
and schedule, a chief information officer evaluation, and anoverall
rating, which is based on the cost, schedule, and ratings.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Within USCIS, directorates govern divisions and program offices
govern specific functions, such as the Transformation Program. One
program office, the Office of Transformation Coordination, has managed
and overseen the development of USCIS ELIS. Other USCIS directorates
and program offices, including the Office of Information Technology and
the Customer Service and Public Engagement directorate, have supported
the management and oversight of the larger USCIS Transformation
Program.
Software Development Approach
In April 2015, USCIS officially changed its software development
approach. In particular, USCIS transitioned from a waterfall approach
to develop, test, and deliver USCIS ELIS functionality \9\ to an
incremental approach. In an incremental approach, software is
developed, tested, and delivered in smaller components or phases,
rather than in the typically long, sequential phases of a traditional
waterfall approach. Incremental software development is consistent with
the Office of Management and Budget's IT Reform Plan \10\ and the law
commonly referred to as the Federal Information Technology Acquisition
Reform Act (FITARA).\11\ The incremental approach chosen by USCIS,
called Agile, is intended to allow subject-matter experts to validate
requirements, processes, and system functionality in increments, and
deliver the functionality to users in short cycles.
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\9\ Waterfall development is an approach that uses long, sequential
phases, resulting in product delivery years after program initiation.
\10\ Office of Management and Budget, 25 Point Implementation Plan
to Reform Federal Information Technology Management (Washington, DC:
Dec. 9, 2010).
\11\ 40 U.S.C. Sec. 11319(b)(1)(B)(ii). The Federal Information
Technology Acquisition Reform provisions of the Carl Levin and Howard
P. ``Buck'' McKeon National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year
2015, Pub. L. No. 113-291, div. A, title VIII, subtitle D, 128 Stat.
3292, 3438-3450 (Dec. 19, 2014).
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transformation program has experienced significant cost increases and
schedule delays
Since USCIS began implementation of the Transformation Program in
2006, the effort has experienced significant cost increases and
schedule delays. In particular, the program's most recent baseline,
approved in April 2015, indicates that the Transformation Program will
cost up to $3.1 billion and be fully deployed no later than March 2019.
This is an increase of approximately $1 billion with a delay of more
than 4 years from its initial July 2011 acquisition program baseline.
In November 2008, USCIS awarded a solutions architect contract for
approximately $500 million over a 5-year period to design, develop,
test, deploy, and sustain the Transformation Program by November 2013.
In July 2011, DHS officially approved the Transformation Program's
acquisition program baseline and supporting operational requirements.
This baseline estimate was for about $2.1 billion and the program was
projected to reach full operating capability no later than June 2014.
In May 2012, USCIS launched the first release of USCIS ELIS. This
release included capabilities associated with all of the system's core
operational requirements, such as on-line account setup, case
management, case acceptance, applicant evidence intake, and notice
generation. Subsequent to this first release, USCIS deployed additional
releases to add functionality. This initial USCIS ELIS \12\ was used to
process nonimmigrant requests to change or extend their status, USCIS
immigrant fees, and immigrant petitions for foreign nationals who make
investments in U.S. commercial enterprises.
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\12\ The initial USCIS ELIS was later replaced with a new system,
also called USCIS ELIS, and the first system was decommissioned. More
details on this are included after Table 2.
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Beginning in 2013, the program was operating beyond its approved
baseline, a situation DHS referred to as being ``in breach.''\13\ As a
result, we reported in 2015 that the program was not in compliance with
DHS acquisition policies and procedures. To address the breach, DHS
acquisition policies and procedures required that, within 90 days, a
new baseline be approved or a program review be conducted to review the
proposed baseline revisions. We reported that neither of these actions
had taken place since 2013.
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\13\ DHS programs establish baselines for cost, schedule, and
performance expectations. When these expectations are exceeded, such as
a cost overrun or schedule delay, the program is considered in breach
and required to re-baseline.
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However, despite exceeding its approved baseline and operating
without a DHS-approved revised acquisition strategy and baseline, the
Transformation program continued with its system development efforts.
As part of the continued development, USCIS pursued a new acquisition
approach. As we reported in May 2015,\14\ changes in its approach
included changes to the software development methodology, contracting
approach, and program architecture and were intended to help address
concerns about delays and cost overruns. See Table 2 for a description
of these changes.
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\14\ GAO-15-415.
TABLE 2.--KEY CHANGES TO THE TRANSFORMATION PROGRAM'S ACQUISITION
APPROACH
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Key change Previous approach New approach
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Contracting approach............ One contractor Multiple
that served as contractors to
the sole solution provide various
architect and services, with
system integrator. USCIS serving as
the system
integrator.
Software development approach... Waterfall Agile software
development, an development, an
approach that approach that
uses long, delivers software
sequential in small, short
phases, resulting increments,
in product resulting in
delivery years software released
after program in phases.
initiation.
Program architecture............ Included a large Includes open-
number of source software,
proprietary which is publicly
commercial off- available for
the-shelf use, study,
software reuse,
products, which modification,
are ready-made enhancement, and
and available for redistribution by
sale. the software's
users. This
software is to be
used in
combination with
fewer commercial
off-the-shelf
products in a
cloud computing
environment.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Source: GAO analysis of USCIS documentation. GAO-17-486T
The shift in acquisition approach also resulted in the proposed
development of a new USCIS ELIS system. The new system was to be a
separate and distinct system from the previously developed USCIS ELIS.
In November 2014, after a year-and-a-half of planning and development,
USCIS deployed an initial version of the new USCIS ELIS system to allow
for limited processing of permanent resident card renewals and
replacements. This initial deployment also tested all core processing
capabilities, such as the ability to electronically file or schedule
appointments for collecting biometric information.
Between November 2014 and February 2015, the functionality of the
new USCIS ELIS was enhanced to allow full processing of permanent
resident card renewals and replacements. Nevertheless, during this
time, the Transformation Program continued to operate in breach status,
without a DHS-approved revised acquisition strategy and baseline. In
2015, we reported\15\ that this breach had impacted DHS's ability to
effectively oversee and govern the program because oversight was no
longer being conducted relative to a current and approved program
schedule.
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\15\ GAO-15-415.
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The program's revised acquisition baseline and strategy were
formally approved in April 2015, over 2 years after the breach. Under
its new acquisition baseline, USCIS estimated the program to cost up to
$3.1 billion and to be fully deployed no later than March 2019. This
was an increase of approximately $1 billion and a delay of over 4 years
from the program's initial approved baseline in July 2011.
The new acquisition strategy represented official DHS approval of
the program's updated acquisition approach and also formally required
that the old USCIS ELIS be decommissioned and that USCIS continue to
pursue the new USCIS ELIS. In May 2015, we reported that changes in the
Transformation Program acquisition strategy intended, in part, to
address the breach had contributed to significant delays in the
program's planned schedule.\16\
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\16\ GAO-15-415.
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In July 2016, we once again expressed concerns over program
performance, focusing on the reliability of the program's cost,
schedule, and scope measurements.\17\ For example, we reported that
delays in the schedule could increase the risk that the program would
proceed with future USCIS ELIS development or deployment before it was
ready in order to meet committed dates. In addition, we reported that
the program was at risk of future schedule delays in later USCIS ELIS
releases, which might result in the program exceeding its revised cost
or schedule thresholds. We made 12 recommendations to improve the
ability of USCIS to manage the program. USCIS concurred with our
recommendations and has initiated work to implement them.
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\17\ GAO-16-467.
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USCIS continues to expand the ability of the new USCIS ELIS to
process citizenship and immigration benefits. Specifically, after April
2016, USCIS deployed the additional capability to process applications
for temporary protected status and additional naturalization forms.
However, in August 2016, the program reverted back to the legacy
system, called the Computer-Linked Application Information Management
System 4, for processing the same naturalization form that had been
deployed in the new USCIS ELIS only 4 months earlier. As a result of
the switchover and other technical issues with the new system, the
program did not complete deployment of system functionality associated
with its Citizenship line of business by its September 2016 deadline,
resulting in another schedule breach.\18\
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\18\ The four lines of business associated with the Transformation
program each represent a different set of system functionality. They
are: (1) Non-immigrant, (2) immigrant, (3) humanitarian, and (4)
citizenship.
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In November 2016, USCIS submitted a breach remediation plan to the
Deputy Under Secretary for Management that identified several root
causes for the breach. These causes included that:
the program's schedule did not allow time to gather user
feedback or address complexities discovered during development;
new requirements were added; and,
USCIS leadership did not provide any consistent performance
requirements on what the program was supposed to accomplish for
specific business lines.
USCIS had planned to re-baseline the program in February 2017 to
account for the September 2016 breach. However, in December 2016, DHS
leadership directed USCIS to stop planning and development for new
lines of business, update its breach remediation plan and acquisition
documentation, and brief leadership on the program's revised approach
by February 2017. The program submitted a revised remediation plan on
February 1, 2017. The revised plan was subsequently accepted by the
Acting Under Secretary for Management on February 14, 2017.
The revised remediation plan set an expectation that the program
would submit revised acquisition documentation for review including a
new baseline by February 28, 2017. However, according to the deputy
chief of the Resource Management Division within the USCIS Office of
Information Technology, the program was granted an extension. According
to this official, the program expects to discuss the revised
acquisition documentation before the Acquisition Review Board in March
2017.
Delays are Impacting the Ability of USCIS to Realize the Benefits of
Transformation
The Transformation Program's delays in delivering system
functionality have limited USCIS's ability to realize its planned cost
savings and operational improvements. With respect to cost savings, the
program's business case highlighted cost savings that would be realized
from decommissioning legacy systems on full deployment of USCIS ELIS.
However, these legacy systems must remain operational to allow
USCIS to perform its mission until an alternative option is available--
thus, preventing the associated savings from being realized. For
example, in fiscal year 2014, the total cost of maintaining systems
that could have been decommissioned if USCIS ELIS had been fully
operational was approximately $71 million. Further, the business case
for the Transformation Program identified anticipated cost savings from
reducing data entry and mail handling costs. With the continuing
delays, however, USCIS will continue to incur such costs while the
program awaits full implementation.
In addition, the schedule delays have deferred USCIS's ability to
realize operational improvements tied to the program and intended to
resolve issues we've previously reported.\19\ For example, the
Transformation Program is expected to implement organizational and
business process changes to better use the new electronic system.
According to USCIS, this increased use of IT should help achieve goals
such as reducing the immigration benefit backlogs through business
process change, improving customer service through expanded electronic
filing, and enhancing National security by authenticating users and
integrating with external agency databases. However, once again, the
delays in delivery of the program mean that these improvements have yet
to be achieved.
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\19\ See appendix I for related GAO products.
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program management challenges contribute to system performance risks
Prior to the Transformation Program's change in acquisition
strategy, USCIS spent more than 8 years and approximately $475 million
on developing the old USCIS ELIS. According to program officials, this
system was decommissioned in April 2016 due to its instability. As we
have reported,\20\ the old USCIS ELIS proceeded through development
despite challenges in program management and limited oversight. Given
this history and the subsequent commitment of additional resources for
a new USCIS ELIS, it is more important than ever that USCIS
consistently follow key practices associated with software development,
systems integration and testing, and contract management \21\ and
execute effective program oversight and governance.
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\20\ See, for example, GAO-15-415 and GAO-16-467.
\21\ These key practices summarize practices that apply to the
USCIS Transformation program and are based on leading practices and
agency policy and guidance. These practices and their sources are
described in more detail in GAO-16-467.
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Inconsistent Software Development Practices Risk Further
Program Costs and Delays
In July 2016, we reported that the program had at least partially
adhered to 7 of 8 key practices \22\ for effectively managing Agile
software development in producing USCIS ELIS.\23\ We reported that the
program deviated from key software development practices for various
reasons. For example, we reported that the program was not always
completing planning for software releases prior to initiating
development as required in agency policy. The USCIS Chief Information
Officer explained that, although policy requires a program to obtain
approval for the scope of each release prior to proceeding with
development, this was no longer the practice for the Transformation
Program. Instead, approval was granted for 6 months of development and
the scope of that approval was revisited as needed. In contrast, time
frames of individual releases were expected to vary depending on the
scope of the release.
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\22\ These practices are described in Table 3. They are gathered
from leading practices and agency policy and guidance. Leading
practices were derived from various sources, including GAO, Software
Development: Effective Practices and Federal Challenges in Applying
Agile Methods, GAO-12-681 (Washington, DC: Jul. 27, 2012); Office of
Management and Budget, U.S. Digital Services, Playbook (version pulled
Dec. 18, 2015); TechFAR: Handbook for Procuring Digital Services Using
Agile Processes (draft version pulled Nov. 6, 2014); Software
Engineering Institute, Agile Metrics: Progress Monitoring of Agile
Contractors, CMU/SEI-2013-TN-029 (Jan. 2014); CMMI for Development,
Version 1.3, CMU/SEI-2010-TR-033 (Nov. 2010); MITRE, Defense Agile
Acquisition Guide: Tailoring DoD IT Acquisition Program Structures and
Processes to Rapidly Deliver Capabilities (March 2014); Handbook for
Implementing Agile in Department of Defense Information Technology
Acquisition (Dec. 15, 2010); ISO/IEC/IEEE, Systems and software
engineering--Developing user documentation in an agile environment,
Corrected Version, ISO/IEC/IEEE 26515:2012(E) (Mar. 15, 2012) (a full
copy of the documents may be found at standards.ieee.org/store); http:/
/agilemanifesto.org.; Ken Schwaber and Jeff Sutherland, The Scrum
Guide:TM The Definitive Guide to Scrum: The Rules of the
Game (Jul. 2013). Applicable agency policy and guidance included U.S.
Citizenship and Immigration Services, Management Instruction CIS-OIT-
001, Office of Information Technology: Agile Development Policy (Apr.
10, 2013); USCIS Agile Processes and Practices, Principles and
Guidelines, version 4.0 (Dec. 6, 2013); USCIS Transformation Program:
System Engineering Life Cycle Tailoring Plan, version 1.0 (March 2015);
USCIS ELIS Team Process Agreement for the April 7, 2015 to September
30, 2015 Development Period; and USCIS ELIS Team Process Agreement for
the July 22, 2015 to January 30, 2016 Development Period.
\23\ GAO-16-467.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
We also found that the program was not consistently following other
key practices and that controls were not always in place to ensure the
program adhered to them. For example, with respect to monitoring and
reporting on program performance through the collection of reliable
metrics, we were unable to track monthly reports on program scope back
to the associated software release backlog. In addressing this matter,
the Business Integration Division within the Office of Transformation
Coordination acknowledged issues regarding traceability. The division
subsequently determined that its process for tracking monthly reports
on program scope back to the associated software release backlog was
not effective since it relied solely on the review of the user stories.
The division acknowledged that requirements traceability is critical to
avoid scope creep and to demonstrate that the features implemented
addressed the mission needs.
With respect to the practice of setting outcomes for Agile software
development, which is the only key practice that the program did not
fully or partially address, the program did not define Agile software
development outcomes. The program provided various reasons for not
addressing the practice. For example, the Chief of OTC Stated that the
outcome or goal for the program is to deploy a product line within
baseline cost, schedule, and performance parameters. Nevertheless, we
reported that the program had not established a well-understood goal,
or set of goals, for its transition to Agile development. Table 3
describes the program's satisfaction of key practices in developing
USCIS ELIS.
TABLE 3.--SATISFACTION OF KEY AGILE DEVELOPMENT MANAGEMENT PRACTICES
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Key practice Rating
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Completing planning for software releases prior to P
initiating development and ensuring software meets
business expectations prior to deployment.................
Adhering to the principles of the framework adopted for P
implementing Agile software development...................
Defining and consistently executing appropriate roles and P
responsibilities for individuals responsible for
development activities....................................
Identifying users of the system and involving them in P
release planning activities...............................
Writing user stories that identify user roles, include P
estimates of complexity, take no longer than one sprint to
complete, and describe business value.....................
Prioritizing user stories to maximize the value of each Y
development cycle.........................................
Setting outcomes for Agile software development............ N
Monitoring and reporting on program performance through the P
collection of reliable metrics............................
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Source: GAO analysis of USCIS documentation. GAO-17-486T.
Note: Y yes P partial N no.
An element was determined to be a ``no'' if USCIS provided no
evidence to satisfy any portion of the practice; ``partial'' if USCIS
provided evidence that satisfied some, but not all, of the practice;
and ``yes'' if USCIS provided evidence that it substantially satisfied
all elements of the practice.
In not addressing key practices for Agile software development, the
program faces added risks in deploying a system that does not meet the
cost, schedule, or the performance needs of USCIS. We recommended that
the program, with assistance from the Department, take seven actions to
provide reasonable assurance that it executes Agile software
development for USCIS ELIS consistent with its own policies and
guidance and follows applicable leading practices. At present, all of
these recommendations remain open.
Testing Practices Need Improvement to Address System
Performance Risks
In this same report,\24\ we found that the program was not
consistently following key system integration and testing
practices.\25\ Specifically, the program had fully implemented 1 and
partially implemented 2 key practices. For example, the program had
established an environment and procedures for continuous integration
and was conducting unit and integration, functional acceptance,
interoperability, and end-user tests, as well as performing code
inspection. However, we also found that the program was not
consistently adhering to its policies and guidance \26\ or meeting
benchmarks for unit and integration, and functional acceptance tests,
and code inspection. Moreover, test plans, cases, and results were not
fully developed for interoperability and end-user testing.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\24\ GAO-16-467.
\25\ These practices are described in table 4. They are gathered
from multiple sources, including leading practices and agency policy
and guidance. Leading practices were derived from various sources,
including ISO/IEC/IEEE, ISO/IECIEEE Standard 29119, Software and System
Engineering--Software Testing, Part 1: Concepts and Definitions, Part
2: Test Process, Part 3: Test Documentation (New York, NY, September
2013) (a full copy of the documents may be found at standards.ieee.org/
store). Applicable agency policy and guidance included Department of
Homeland Security, Pre-Decisional Draft, DHS Agile Development
Guidebook (Sept. 2, 2014); U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services,
USCIS Test and Evaluation Master Plan: Electronic Immigration System,
version 1.0 (February 2015); USCIS ELIS Team Process Agreement for the
April 7, 2015 to September 30, 2015 Development Period; and USCIS ELIS
Team Process Agreement for the July 22, 2015 to January 30, 2016
Development Period; Agile Processes and Practices Principles and
Guidelines, version 4.0 (Dec. 6, 2013); USCIS Test Plan for Release
5.1-6.0 (10/15/2014-4/15/2015); USCIS Test Plan (updated July 2015).
\26\ Department of Homeland Security, Pre-Decisional Draft, DHS
Agile Development Guidebook (Sept. 2, 2014); U.S. Citizenship and
Immigration Services, USCIS Test and Evaluation Master Plan: Electronic
Immigration System, version 1.0 (February 2015); USCIS ELIS Team
Process Agreement for the April 7, 2015 to September 30, 2015
Development Period; and USCIS ELIS Team Process Agreement for the July
22, 2015 to January 30, 2016 Development Period; USCIS Agile Processes
and Practices Principles and Guidelines, version 4.0 (Dec. 6, 2013);
USCIS Test Plan for Release 5.1-6.0 (10/15/2014-4/15/2015); USCIS Test
Plan (updated July 2015).
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We reported that the implementation of systems integration and
testing deviated from key practices in part because policy and guidance
were not being updated to reflect changes in the approach. For example,
with respect to performing continuous testing, the program did not meet
its stated goals for continuous testing because, according to the USCIS
Chief Information Officer, certain program goals were unrealistic.
Table 4 describes the program's satisfaction of key practices in USCIS
ELIS integration and testing.
TABLE 4.--SATISFACTION OF KEY INTEGRATION AND TESTING PRACTICES
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Key practice Rating
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Establishing an environment and procedures for continuous Y
integration and testing of code...........................
Performing continuous testing through the use of unit and P
integration tests, functional acceptance tests, and code
inspection................................................
Developing complete test plans and cases for P
interoperability and end-user testing and documenting
those results.............................................
------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ Source: GAO analysis of USCIS documentation. GAO-17-486T
\2\ Note: Y yes P partial N no.
\3\ An element was determined to be a ``no'' if USCIS provided no
evidence to satisfy any portion of the practice; ``partial'' if USCIS
provided evidence that satisfied some, but not all, of the practice;
and ``yes'' if USCIS provided evidence that it substantially satisfied
all elements of the practice.
In addition, program policy and guidance did not always align with
key practices in systems integration and testing, nor were controls
always in place to ensure adherence to policy and guidance. For
example, before a developer could integrate code with that of other
developers or development teams, peer inspection by another individual
was expected to occur to help ensure that the code met program
standards. However, the program had not established controls to monitor
the extent to which peer inspection had occurred.
As a result of these findings on systems integration and testing,
we reported that the program risked poor system performance after being
released to the public. At that time, this risk was already being
realized. Specifically, the program had reported experiencing issues
with USCIS ELIS as a result of deploying software that had not been
fully tested. For example:
In June 2015, the Quality Assurance Team reported that
production issues, such as bugs and defects, had increased
noticeably after the February 2015 deployment.
In July 2015, the Quality Assurance Team reported that
defects (originating from either production or development)
were becoming a significant part of USCIS ELIS iteration work.
On September 22, 2015, in addition to prior and subsequent
outages of the system, the Quality Assurance Team reported that
USCIS ELIS was unavailable for approximately 15 hours due to
issues with code quality.
On September 24, 2015, USCIS ELIS encountered performance
problems that impacted nearly 5,000 cases. Approximately 2,600
of these cases had to be abandoned.
In November and December 2015, the Quality Assurance Team
reported that code quality had become a major issue.
In January 2016, the program reported more than 800 minutes
in unplanned network outages.
In February 2016, the program reported missing the threshold
for USCIS ELIS reliability (e.g. mean time between failure),
for 2 straight months and 4 of the last 6 months.
In March 2016, program metrics indicated that production
tickets were increasing faster than they could be addressed.
Based on these findings associated with systems integration and
testing, we made two recommendations to the program. These
recommendations were associated with updating existing policy and
guidance for systems integration and testing and considering additional
controls. At present, these recommendations remain open.
Contract Oversight Practices Limit Contractor Accountability
In the same report,\27\ based on a review of six contracts,\28\ we
found that USCIS had mixed success in implementing selected key
contract management internal controls.\29\ Specifically, we found that
contracting officer representatives were meeting training requirements
and USCIS had documented its rationale for not pursuing selected
contracts as performance-based. However, we also reported that the
program could improve contract monitoring to provide reasonable
assurance that contractors were meeting program needs. For example, we
reported that
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\27\ GAO-16-467.
\28\ These six contracts were two firm, fixed-price contracts
managed by the program office and four cost-plus-fixed-fee contracts
managed by the Office of Information Technology.
\29\ The key internal controls are described in GAO, Standards for
Internal Control in the Federal Government, GAO/AIMD-00-21.3.1,
(Washington, DC: November 1999); National Flood Insurance Program:
Progress Made on Contract Management but Monitoring and Reporting Could
be Improved, GAO-14-160 (Washington, DC: Jan. 15, 2014): Office of
Federal Procurement Policy, A Guide to Best Practices for Contract
Administration, (Washington, DC: October 1994); Department of Homeland
Security, Federal Acquisition Certification for Contracting Officer's
Representatives and Appointment and Revocation, Acquisition Workforce
Policy Number 064-04-003, Revision 02 (Aug. 8, 2012); Contracting
Officer's Representative (COR) Essential Element Guidebook, Spiral 1
(September 2012); and Office of Procurement Operations: Acquisition
Manual, version 1.0 (May 1, 2015).
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The Agile development services contract contained
appropriate performance criteria that linked to the program
goals, but the program did not clearly define measures against
which to analyze differences between services expected and
those delivered. Because oversight of contractor performance
resides with the Office of Transformation Coordination and
management of the contract is the responsibility of the Office
of Information Technology, we reported that the need for
clearly-defined performance measures was particularly
important.
The program maintained some required documentation in
contract files and used contractor performance assessments.
However, more clearly-defined success measures and evaluation
against those measures could have alerted the program to issues
in systems integration and testing.
Based on these findings, we reported that the agency lacked
information for measuring contractor performance and determining if the
Office of Information Technology was meeting its objectives in
supporting the program. To help improve oversight of these selected
contracts, we made three recommendations focused on contract
administration and supporting controls. Since then, the agency has
taken steps to close these recommendations, successfully closing two of
the three. If effectively implemented, these actions should contribute
to improved administration of the contracts that we assessed in our
review.
DHS Oversight Bodies Need to Improve Governance and
Oversight of the Transformation Program
We also reported in May 2015 \30\ that the program's two key
governance bodies were mostly taking actions aligned with leading
practices, but that their decisions were made based on unreliable
information. For example, we reported that the Acquisition Review Board
ensured that corrective actions were identified when cost, schedule, or
performance issues arose. However, the board was not always monitoring
performance and progress toward a predefined cost and schedule or
ensuring that corrective actions were tracked until the desired
outcomes were achieved.
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\30\ GAO-15-415.
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In addition, we found that two DHS offices assisting in overseeing
the program--the Office of Program Accountability and Risk Management
and the Office of the Chief Information Officer--developed program
assessments that reflected unreliable and, in some cases, inaccurate
information. For example, the Office of the Chief Information Officer
performed four assessments of the Transformation Program from June 2013
through June 2014. The most recent assessment available at the time,
from June 2014, Stated that the program underwent a re-baseline for
release 5.0 and, as a result, reported an acceptable schedule variance
and positive cost performance. However, at that time, the program had
experienced over a 4-year delay in its schedule and had not performed a
re-baseline to bring it back within cost and schedule thresholds.
Based on these findings, we reported that the ability of governance
bodies to make timely decisions and provide effective oversight was
limited. To help improve program governance, we made four
recommendations. Subsequently, the program addressed one recommendation
by establishing a new baseline, although that baseline has again been
breached. The program has taken steps to close the remaining
recommendations, although the recommendations remain open.
In summary, the USCIS Transformation Program began officially
pursuing a new acquisition strategy in April 2015 to mitigate risks
encountered in developing the original system. However, this new
strategy reflects a higher cost estimate and a longer amount of time
before the system is fully implemented than the program's previously
approved strategy. In addition, the program is again encountering
issues in development and production. If the agency does not address
issues in its efforts to develop and test software, oversee
contractors, and govern the program it risks additional cost increases,
schedule delays, and performance shortfalls. In addition, continued
delays limit the program's ability to achieve critical goals, such as
delivering system functionality to enhance customer service and
enhancing National security.
Chairman Perry, Ranking Member Correa, and Members of the
subcommittee, this completes my prepared statement. I would be pleased
to respond to any questions that you may have at this time.
Appendix I.--Related GAO Products
Immigrant Investor Program: Progress Made to Detect and Prevent
Fraud, but Additional Actions Could Further Agency Efforts, GAO-16-828
(Washington, DC: Sept. 13, 2016).
Immigration Benefits System: U.S. Citizenship and Immigration
Services Can Improve Program Management, GAO-16-467 (Washington, DC:
July 7, 2016).
Asylum: Additional Actions Needed to Assess and Address Fraud
Risks, GAO-16-50 (Washington, DC: Dec. 2, 2015).
Immigrant Investor Program: Additional Actions Needed to Better
Assess Fraud Risks and Report Economic Benefits, GAO-15-696
(Washington, DC: Aug. 12, 2015).
Immigration Benefits System: Better Informed Decision Making Needed
on Transformation Program, GAO-15-415 (Washington, DC: May 18, 2015).
H-2A and H-2B Visa Programs: Increased Protections Needed for
Foreign Workers, GAO-15-154 (Washington, DC: Mar. 6, 2015).
Immigration Benefits: Improvements Needed to Fully Implement the
International Marriage Broker Regulation Act, GAO-15-3 (Washington, DC:
Dec. 10, 2014).
H-2A Visa Program: Modernization and Improved Guidance Could Reduce
Employer Application Burden, GAO-12-706 (Washington, DC: Sept. 12,
2012).
Immigration Benefits: Consistent Adherence to DHS's Acquisition
Policy Could Help Improve Transformation Program Outcomes, GAO-12-66
(Washington, DC: Nov. 22, 2011).
Department of Homeland Security: Progress Made and Work Remaining
in Implementing Homeland Security Missions 10 Years after 9/11, GAO-11-
881 (Washington, DC: Sept. 7, 2011).
Immigration Benefits: Actions Needed to Address Vulnerabilities in
Process for Granting Permanent Residency, GAO-09-55 (Washington, DC:
Dec. 5, 2008).
USCIS Transformation: Improvements to Performance, Human Capital,
and Information Technology Management Needed as Modernization Proceeds,
GAO-07-1013R (Washington, DC: July 17, 2007).
Appendix II.--Status of GAO Recommendations to Improve Transformation
Program Performance
TABLE 5.--SATISFACTION OF KEY INTEGRATION AND TESTING PRACTICES
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Recommendation Report Status
------------------------------------------------------------------------
1. Document specific performance GAO-07-1013R...... Closed
measures and targets for the
pilots, increments, and the
transformed organization that
are outcome-oriented,
objective, reliable, balanced,
limited to the vital-few,
measurable, and aligned with
organizational goals.
2. Increase coordination between GAO-07-1013R...... Closed
program office and the Office
of Human Capital to ensure
transformation and human
capital change initiatives are
aligned.
3. Plan for the number and types GAO-07-1013R...... Closed
of human resources required in
the program office to carry the
transformation through 2012.
4. Plan for obtaining and GAO-07-1013R...... Closed
developing the IT human capital
necessary to support the
transformation.
5. Determine the critical skills GAO-07-1013R...... Closed
and competencies that will be
needed to achieve future
programmatic results as well as
strategies to address gaps in
employee numbers, deployment,
and skills and competencies.
6. Address continuity in key GAO-07-1013R...... Closed
transformation leadership
positions and address impacts
to time frames when key
personnel leave.
7. Use performance expectations GAO-07-1013R...... Closed
and competencies to hold USCIS
executives and employees
accountable for achieving the
goals of the transformation.
8. Continue to develop an GAO-07-1013R...... Closed
enterprise architecture that
sufficiently guides and
constrains the transformation
plans, as DHS works to address
limitations in its own
enterprise architecture and
alignment processes.
9. Complete a comprehensive GAO-07-1013R...... Closed
communication strategy that
involves communicating early
and often to build trust,
ensuring consistency of
message, and encouraging two-
way communication. Further, the
communication strategy should
address plans for communicating
implementation goals and time
lines to demonstrate progress.
10. Complete a comprehensive GAO-07-1013R...... Closed
communication strategy that
addresses plans for formally
engaging internal and external
stakeholders throughout the
transformation, and tailors
information to meet these
stakeholders' specific needs.
11. Complete a comprehensive GAO-07-1013R...... Closed
communication strategy that
addresses plans for a long-
term, detailed strategy to
share information with
employees and stakeholders over
the course of the
transformation.
12. Document specific GAO-07-1013R...... Closed
performance measures and
targets for the pilots,
increments, and the transformed
organization that are outcome-
oriented, objective reliable,
balanced, limited to the vital-
few, measurable, and aligned
with organizational goals.
13. Develop and maintain an GAO-12-66......... Closed
Integrated Master Schedule
consistent with these same best
practices for the
Transformation Program.
14. Ensure that the life-cycle GAO-12-66......... Closed
cost estimate is informed by
milestones and associated tasks
from reliable schedules that
are developed in accordance
with the nine best practices we
identified.
15. Re-baseline cost, schedule, GAO-15-415........ Closed
and performance expectations
for the remainder of the
Transformation Program.
16. Ensure that the Acquisition GAO-15-415........ Open
Review Board is effectively
monitoring the Transformation
Program's performance and
progress toward a predefined
cost and schedule; ensuring
that corrective actions are
tracked until the desired
outcomes are achieved; and
relying on complete and
accurate program data to review
the performance of the
Transformation Program against
stated expectations.
17. Ensure that the Executive GAO-15-415........ Open
Steering Committee is
effectively monitoring the
Transformation Program's
performance and progress toward
a predefined cost and schedule
and relying on complete and
accurate program data to review
the performance of the
Transformation Program against
stated expectations.
18. Direct the Department's GAO-15-415........ Open
chief information officer to
use accurate and reliable
information, such as
operational assessments of the
new architecture and cost and
schedule parameters approved by
the under secretary of
management.
19. Complete planning for GAO-16-467........ Open
software releases prior to
initiating development and
ensure software meets business
expectations prior to
deployment.
20. Consistently implement the GAO-16-467........ Open
principles of the framework
adopted for Agile software
development.
21. Define and consistently GAO-16-467........ Open
execute appropriate roles and
responsibilities for
individuals responsible for
development activities
consistent with its selected
development framework.
22. Identify all system users GAO-16-467........ Open
and involve them in release
planning activities.
23. Write user stories that GAO-16-467........ Open
identify user roles, include
estimates of complexity, take
no longer than one sprint to
complete, and describe business
value.
24. Establish outcomes for Agile GAO-16-467........ Open
software development.
25. Monitor program performance GAO-16-467........ Open
and report to appropriate
entities through the collection
of reliable metrics.
26. Conduct unit and GAO-16-467........ Open
integration, and functional
acceptance tests, and code
inspection consistent with
stated program goals.
27. Develop complete test plans GAO-16-467........ Open
and cases for interoperability
and end-user testing, as
defined in the USCIS
Transformation Program Test and
Evaluation Master Plan, and
document the results.
28. Clearly define measures GAO-16-467........ Closed
against which to analyze
differences between services
expected and those delivered.
29. Ensure contracting officer GAO-16-467........ Open
representatives are maintaining
complete contract files.
30. Ensure quality assurance GAO-16-467........ Closed
surveillance plans are
developed when appropriate.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Source: GAO analysis of DHS and USCIS documentation GAO-17-486T.
Mr. Perry. Chair thanks Ms. Harris.
The Chair now recognizes Mr. Roth for his opening
statement.
STATEMENT OF JOHN ROTH, INSPECTOR GENERAL, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF
HOMELAND SECURITY
Mr. Roth. Thank you.
Chairman Perry, Ranking Member Correa, and Members of
subcommittee, thank you for inviting me to testify.
For my oral testimony today I will focus on CIS information
technology Transformation issues and DHS's ineffective use of
fingerprint records in the naturalization process.
First, with regard to Transformation, after 11 years CIS
has made little progress in automating its paper-based
procedures. Past automation attempts have been hampered by
ineffective planning, multiple changes in direction, and
inconsistent stakeholder involvement.
After years of planning and delay, CIS began employing the
Electronic Immigration System, which is known as--by its
acronym as ELIS, in May 2012 to modernize the processing of
approximately 90 different immigration benefit types. However,
currently customers can only apply on-line for 2 of the 90
benefit types--benefits and services.
As it struggles to address these system issues, CIS told us
last March that it now estimates it will take 3 more years,
which is over 4 years longer than estimated, and an additional
billion dollars to automate all benefit types as expected.
However, given past practice, we do not have confidence that
CIS's estimations for completion are accurate.
The inability to automate their paper-based systems has
real-world consequences. According to agency-wide performance
metrics, benefits processes in ELIS should take 65 days.
However, we found that in May 2015 processing was taking an
average of 112 days, which is almost twice the amount of time
it should take.
Likewise, in our 2014 audit we reported that although ELIS
capabilities had been implemented, the anticipated efficiencies
still had not yet been achieved. In fact, we reported that
adjudicating benefits on paper was actually faster than
adjudicating them in ELIS. That remains unchanged even today.
The Transformation process has created considerable risk
for the program and the Nation. For instance, in November 2016
we reported that the design and functionality problems in ELIS
resulted in CIS in 3 years receiving over 200,000 reports from
approved applicants about missing green cards--that is, cards
that should have been mailed and received by the applicant but
were not. We found such instances of missing or mis-delivered
green cards had actually doubled in 2 years, between 2013 and
2016.
Our work also revealed that during that time CIS produced
at least 19,000 cards that included incorrect information or
were issued in duplicate.
The agency then appears to--excuse me, the agency appears
unable to address the root cause of these problems, which is
the design and functionality limitations of ELIS. Although CIS
went to considerable effort to try to recover inappropriately
used--issued cards, its efforts were not fully successful and
lacked consistency and a sense of urgency.
Notwithstanding our significant body of work highlighting
the ELIS functionality and performance problems, in April of
last year CIS decided to roll out ELIS under the N-400 Form,
which is the application for citizenship and one of the
highest-volume and most complex benefit types. The roll-out was
plagued with significant technical and functional issues,
prompting the CIS director in August 2016 to discontinue the
use of ELIS and revert to the legacy system for all new N-400
applications.
However, nearly 250,000 cases had already been adjusted
between April and August and had to be completed in ELIS. As of
February 24 of this year, more than 185,000 of those cases
remain incomplete in ELIS. This is unsurprising, given how
little progress CIS has made in addressing ELIS's core
technical and functional issues.
We have found other issues that highlight the challenges
that CIS faces in immigration benefits processing.
In September 2016 we issued a report that found that CIS
granted citizenship to at least 858 individuals who may have
been ineligible for citizenship because they had received
deportation orders or removal orders under different identities
in the past.
The only fingerprint records that were available that
linked these individuals to the deportation orders had been
taken on old paper cards and simply stored in manually
collected alien files under different names. When DHS decided
to establish its electronic fingerprint repository it did not
digitize and upload those fingerprint cards. Because they were
not digitized, CIS could not match applicants for citizenship
against those fingerprints.
In addition, the report identified about 148,000
fingerprint cards linking individuals to deportation orders,
fugitive status, and criminal histories that still had not been
uploaded to the DHS fingerprint repository. Fortunately, DHS
has taken significant steps toward fixing this problem.
We will continue to exercise diligent oversight over CIS,
paying particular attention to issues impacting National
security. Consistent with our obligations under the Inspector
General Act, we will keep Congress fully and currently informed
of our findings and recommendations.
Mr. Chairman, this completes my prepared statement. I am
happy to answer any questions that you or other Members of the
committee may have.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Roth follows:]
Prepared Statement of John Roth
March 16, 2017
Chairman Perry, Ranking Member Correa, and Members of the
committee, thank you for inviting me to discuss the Office of Inspector
General's (OIG) work relating to weaknesses in U.S. Citizenship and
Immigration Services (USCIS) systems for vetting immigration benefits.
Today, I would like to focus on the findings of our work pertaining to
a number of related issues, including USCIS information technology
transformation issues, USCIS's ineffective use of fingerprint records
in the naturalization process, and security weaknesses in USCIS's
Systematic Alien Verification System for Entitlements (SAVE).
issues with uscis information technology transformation
Functionality Issues Continue to Plague ELIS
After 11 years, USCIS has made little progress in automating its
paper-based processes. Past automation attempts have been hampered by
ineffective planning, multiple changes in direction, and inconsistent
stakeholder involvement. After years of planning and delay, USCIS
deployed the Electronic Immigration System (ELIS) in May 2012 to
modernize processing of approximately 90 immigration benefits types.
However, currently customers can apply on-line for only 2 of the 90
types of immigration benefits and services.
ELIS was intended to provide integrated on-line case management to
support end-to-end automated adjudication of immigration benefits. Once
implemented, individuals seeking an immigration benefit should be able
to establish on-line ELIS accounts to file and track their
applications, petitions, or requests as they move through the
immigration process.
In March of last year, we issued a report that found that at the
time of our field work, which ended in July 2015, little progress had
been made.\1\ Specifically, we concluded:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ USCIS Automation of Immigration Benefits Processing Remains
Ineffective, OIG-16-48 (March 2016).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Although USCIS deployed ELIS in May 2012, only 2 of 90 types
of immigration benefits were available for on-line customer
filing, accounting for less than 10 percent of the agency's
total workload. These two are the USCIS Immigrant Fee, which
allows customers to submit electronic payment of the $165
processing fee for an immigrant visa packet, and the
Application to Replace Permanent Resident Card (Form I-90).
Among the limited number of USCIS employees using ELIS,
personnel reported that the system was not user-friendly, was
missing critical functionality, and had significant performance
problems processing benefits cases. Some of those issues are
set forth in this chart:
USCIS ELIS User Feedback on I-90 Processing
Need to manually refresh
website often to see the most
recent information.
Difficulty navigating
among multiple screens and web
browsers.
Inability to move browser
windows to view case data.
Cases getting stuck
throughout the process and
inability to move to the next step
without intervention.
Inability to undo a
function or correct a data entry
error.
Inability to enter
comments on actions taken after a
case has been adjudicated. Card errors received when
``NMN'' is entered for applicants
with no middle name.
Failure to produce cards
for approved cases.
Inability to process
benefits for military or homebound
applicants.
Errors in displaying
customer date of birth.
Scheduling applicants to
submit biometrics (photo,
signature, prints) that are not
needed.
Inability to create a case
referral electronically once
adjudication is complete.
The limited ELIS deployment and current system performance
problems may be attributed to some of the same deficiencies we
reported regarding previous USCIS IT transformation attempts.
Specifically, USCIS did not ensure sufficient stakeholder
involvement in ELIS implementation activities and decisions for
meeting field operational needs. Testing had not been conducted
adequately to ensure end-to-end functionality prior to each
ELIS release. Further, USCIS had not provided adequate post-
implementation technical support for end-users, an issue that
has been on-going since the first ELIS release in 2012.
As it struggles to address these system issues, USCIS told
us last March that it now estimates that it will take 3 more
years--over 4 years longer than estimated--and an additional $1
billion to automate all benefit types as expected. Until USCIS
fully implements ELIS with all the needed improvements, the
agency will remain unable to achieve its workload processing,
customer service, and National security goals.
We do not have confidence in USCIS's estimates for
completion, given past experience. Specifically, in 2011, USCIS
established a plan to implement ELIS agency-wide by 2014.
However, USCIS was not able to carry out this plan and the
schedule was delayed by 4 years, causing a program breach. An
updated baseline schedule for the Transformation Program was
approved in April 2015 estimating all benefits and services
would be automated by 2019; however, USCIS has shifted and
delayed these release dates.
Certain program goals have also not been met. According to
agency-wide performance metrics, benefits processing in ELIS
was to take less than 65 days. However, we found that in May
2015, processing was taking an average of 112 days, almost
twice that amount of time. Previous results also were slower
than their reported metric: 104 days in November 2014, 95 days
in February 2015, and 112 days in May 2015. By slowing down the
work of adjudicators, ELIS was resulting in less efficiency and
productivity in processing benefits.
Similarly, in 2014, we reported that although ELIS capabilities had
been implemented, the anticipated efficiencies still had not been
achieved.\2\ In fact, we reported that adjudicating benefits on paper
was faster than adjudicating them in ELIS. This remains unchanged even
today. Ensuring progress in operational efficiency was hampered by the
fact that USCIS lacked an adequate methodology for assessing ELIS's
impact on time and accuracy in benefits processing. Beyond obtaining
feedback from personnel and customers using the system, the
Transformation Program Office could not effectively gauge whether cases
were being adjudicated more efficiently or accurately in ELIS.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\2\ U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Information
Technology Management Progress and Challenges, OIG-14-112 (July 2014).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
We made four recommendations to the USCIS Director to improve ELIS
functionality. The USCIS Director concurred with only two of the four
recommendations. USCIS's inability to implement ELIS with all needed
improvements has continued to negatively affect USCIS's ability to
deliver immigration and citizenship benefits, which raises security
risks.
Impact of ELIS Issues on Green Card Issuance
Since May 2013, USCIS processing of new and replacement Permanent
Resident Cards (commonly referred to as green cards) has been
accomplished using ELIS. Yet the process has been fraught with issues,
creating considerable security risk for the Nation. For instance, in
March 2016, we reported that USCIS had sent potentially hundreds of
green cards to the wrong addresses due to an ELIS limitation that
prevented USCIS personnel from updating customer addresses.\3\
Additionally, in November 2016, we reported that design and
functionality problems in ELIS resulted in USCIS receiving over 200,000
reports from approved applicants about missing green cards.\4\
Obviously, the possibility that some of these missing green cards may
have fallen into the wrong hands raises significant security concerns.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\3\ USCIS Automation of Immigration Benefits Processing Remains
Ineffective, OIG-16-48 (March 2016).
\4\ Better Safeguards Are Needed in USCIS Green Card Issuance, OIG-
17-11 (November 2016).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Despite the risk posed by improperly issued green cards, however,
USCIS has seen the number of cards sent to wrong addresses increase
since 2013. For instance, service requests initiated by USCIS customers
claiming they did not receive green cards increased from 44,519 in
fiscal year 2013 to 92,645 in fiscal year--in other words, the error
rate doubled in only 2 years. Our work also revealed that between 2013
and 2016, USCIS produced at least 19,000 cards that included incorrect
information or were issued in duplicate. From March to May 2016 alone,
USCIS issued at least 750 duplicate cards to its customers as a result
of ELIS functionality or legacy data migration problems. In some cases,
applicants paid the processing fee twice and received two cards. In
another case, an applicant received green cards that belonged to two
other applicants. And in several extreme cases, five cards were
produced per customer over the course of a single month.
The agency appears unable to address the root cause of these
problems--design and functionality limitations of ELIS. Although USCIS
went to considerable effort to try to recover the inappropriately-
issued cards, its efforts were not fully successful and lacked
consistency and a sense of urgency.
Improperly-issued green cards can pose significant risks and
burdens for the agency. For instance:
Denied Benefits for Approved Applicants.--Green cards issued
with incorrect personal information can have severe
consequences for applicants who have become lawful permanent
residents. For example, recipients possessing cards with errors
could experience denial of benefits or possible card
confiscation with accusations of fraudulent intent. This
creates unnecessary hardship for the applicant who must reapply
for a corrected card. Also, when cards are missing or not
properly delivered, applicants may be unable to obtain or renew
driver's licenses or Social Security cards, obtain employment
without interruption, or gain authorization to exit and re-
enter the United States. In such cases, approved applicants may
not be able to exercise their rights as lawful immigrants.
Additional Workload and Costs.--Responding to card issuance
errors results in additional workload and costs. USCIS
addresses thousands of customer inquiries every month regarding
non-delivery of green cards. The associated cost of dealing
with these customer inquiries has significantly increased over
the last few years. Specifically, the cost to USCIS for
receiving and responding to non-delivery service requests
almost doubled from approximately $780,000 in fiscal year 2013
to nearly $1.5 million fiscal year 2015.
National Security Risks.--Most concerning, thousands of
cards issued with incorrect information or in duplicate remain
unaccounted for, creating opportunities for exploitation by
individuals with malicious intent. For instance, green cards
that fall into the wrong hands may enable illegal immigrants to
remain in the United States and demonstrate legal residence
status to employers. Drivers' licenses, firearms, and concealed
handgun licenses may be issued to card holders in certain
States without restrictions. Officials within CBP's Fraudulent
Document Analysis Unit confirmed that there is a huge black
market demand for legal documentation such as green cards, as
over 4,600 cases of imposter green cards were recorded between
2013 and 2015.
Processing and issuing over 2 million green cards per year is a
massive undertaking. USCIS must ensure that ELIS's design and
functionality can be relied upon to accurately process green cards.
Until USCIS takes the steps needed to prevent card issuance errors, the
upward trend in agency costs, as well as the risks to applicants and
National security, is only likely to continue. We made seven
recommendations to the USCIS Director to improve ELIS functionality and
develop internal controls to avoid inappropriate green card issuance,
standardize card recovery and tracking efforts, prevent unrecoverable
card use, and enable remote identity verification and more secure card
delivery methods. The USCIS Director concurred with our
recommendations, but it remains to be seen how and when USCIS will be
able to address these issues.
Impact of ELIS Issues on Naturalization Application Processing
Given the ELIS functionality and performance problems identified in
our earlier work, we began an assessment in December 2016 of USCIS's
current efforts to automate processing of the N-400 Application for
Naturalization in ELIS. The N-400 is a high-volume benefit type within
the citizenship line of business, involving all field offices Nation-
wide. On average, USCIS receives 66,000 N-400 applicants per month and
naturalizes over 3,300 new U.S. citizens each day. N-400 is a key
product line, as this is the ultimate immigration benefit for U.S.
citizenship. Having electronic capabilities to support the end-to-end
process is critical to enable efficiency and accuracy in conducting
background checks, scheduling and conducting interviews, administering
tests, scheduling oath ceremoneys, naturalization certificate printing,
and sharing case data with Department of Homeland Security (DHS)
partners once naturalization has taken place.
Our on-going review has already uncovered significant operational
and security issues that pose grave concern. Since the deployment of
the N-400 in ELIS on April 13, 2016, the system has impaired the
ability of USCIS Immigration Services Officers and field personnel to
conduct naturalization processing. Through our preliminary work, we
have identified a range of ELIS technical and functional issues that
have slowed processing and productivity, including:
Missing core ELIS functionality;
Naturalization cases stuck in ELIS workflows, requiring
manual intervention for case progression;
Frequent ELIS and network outages;
ELIS failure to connect with supporting systems; and
Multiple or erroneous cancellation of applicant interviews.
On-going USCIS efforts to correct technical deficiencies while
concurrently continuing to develop system functionality have resulted
in ELIS down time, instability, and repeated changes that interrupt
processing and confuse system users. Moreover, the USCIS Field
Operations Directorate identified significant challenges which are
preventing effective naturalization processing. These deficiencies
include incomplete or inaccurate background and security checks, which
have National security implications, as well as wide-spread certificate
printing problems that delayed numerous naturalization oathing
ceremoneys.
Given these issues, the USCIS Director in August 2016 discontinued
the use of ELIS and reverted to the legacy system for all new N-400
applications received after that date. However, the 243,951 cases
already ingested between April 2016 and August 2016 had to be completed
in ELIS. As of February 24, 2017, 188,447 cases remained incomplete in
ELIS. This is unsurprising given how little progress USCIS has made in
addressing ELIS's core technical and functional issues.
Early this year, in the midst of our assessment, we learned of an
impending decision by USCIS leadership to return to processing new N-
400 applications in ELIS by late January 2017. Given the serious nature
of the issues our review had already uncovered, we took the uncommon
step of issuing a Management Alert on January 19, 2017 recommending
that USCIS halt its plans to revert to using ELIS for N-400 application
processing.\5\ We were concerned about the risk posed by such a move
given the many unresolved problems with ELIS.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\5\ Management Alert--U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services'
Use of the Electronic Immigration System for Naturalization Benefits
Processing, OIG-17-26-MA (January 2017).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In response to our Management Alert, USCIS initially agreed to
delay the return to ELIS processing until all of the technical issues
had been resolved. We know that the agency is continuing to assess when
to return N-400 processing to the ELIS system. We continue to urge
caution in resuming the program without thoroughly and carefully
addressing the numerous design and functional limitations. USCIS's
adherence to time tables at the expense of a properly functioning
system would create unnecessary serious risk to the program goals and
to National security.
We are slated to complete our N-400 review later this spring, and
will provide a report of our findings and recommendations to Congress
to ensure that Congress remains fully and currently informed on this
matter.
uscis ineffective use of fingerprint records
Information technology transformation problems are not the only
issue USCIS faces with respect to its immigration benefits processing.
In September 2016, we issued a report that identified vulnerabilities
in the immigration system caused by incomplete records in the DHS
fingerprint repository.\6\ We initiated the review after receiving a
list of 1,029 individuals who allegedly were ineligible for naturalized
citizenship, yet received it, because fingerprint records linking them
to disqualifying facts were not available.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\6\ Potentially Ineligible Individuals Have Been Granted
Citizenship Because of Incomplete Fingerprint Records, OIG-16-130
(September 2016).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Our report confirmed that USCIS granted citizenship to at least 858
individuals on the list who may have been ineligible for naturalized
citizenship because they had received deportation orders under
different identities in the past. The only fingerprint records
available that linked the individuals to the deportation orders had
been taken on old paper cards and stored in alien files under different
names. When DHS established its electronic fingerprint repository, it
did not digitize and upload those fingerprint cards.
In addition, the report identified about 148,000 fingerprint cards
linking individuals to deportation orders, fugitive status, and
criminal histories that were not uploaded to the DHS fingerprint
repository. Because those records are missing from the fingerprint
repository, USCIS risks naturalizing additional individuals who may be
ineligible for citizenship or who may be trying to obtain U.S.
citizenship fraudulently.
The report made two recommendations: (1) The Directors of USCIS,
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and DHS's Office of
Operations Coordination (OPS) should establish a plan for evaluating
the eligibility of each naturalized citizen whose fingerprint records
reveal deportation orders under different identities; and (2) ICE
should digitize and upload the 148,000 missing fingerprint records to
the Department's electronic fingerprint repository. Although the
recommendations are still open, DHS has taken significant steps toward
closing them. For example, in December 2016, ICE reported that it
awarded a contract to review and upload available data from the 148,000
missing fingerprint records with an estimated completion date of June
30, 2017. With regard to recommendation 1, as of early December 2016,
ICE has reportedly completed a review of 96 percent of the reported
1,746 cases and has begun developing Affidavits of Good Cause for cases
that will be referred for possible denaturalization.
uscis systematic alien verification system for entitlements
In December 2012, we reported on a serious security weakness in
USCIS's Systematic Alien Verification System for Entitlements
(SAVE).\7\ Federal, State, and local entities use SAVE to validate an
individual's immigration status prior to granting benefits. In most
cases, an error in SAVE verification means that a deportable individual
can receive benefits ranging from public assistance to a driver's
license. In some instances, the errors can have National security
implications when erroneously cleared individuals receive credentials,
such as a Transportation Worker Identification Card, which allows them
unescorted access to secure areas of the Nation's vessels and maritime
facilities.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\7\ Improvements Needed for the SAVE to Accurately Determine
Immigration Status of Individuals Ordered Deported, OIG-13-11 (December
2012).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Through our work, we projected via sample testing that USCIS had
failed to identify the deportable status of 12 percent of individuals
submitted through SAVE. In these instances, SAVE reported that
individuals still had legal status in the United States when in fact
the U.S. Immigration Courts had ordered that they be deported. Many
deportable individuals had felony convictions involving extortion,
aggravated assault, burglary, or possession of dangerous drugs.
Errors occurred because SAVE did not have a process to timely
receive information from the U.S. Immigration Courts on the status of
deportable individuals. To address this control weakness, we
recommended that USCIS identify and build interfaces to appropriate
systems so that it can receive up-to-date information on individuals in
deportable status. However, despite the serious security implications,
it took USCIS nearly 45 months to implement and begin using the system
interface we recommended.\8\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\8\ Verification Review of USCIS's Progress in Implementing OIG
Recommendations for SAVE to Accurately Determine Immigration Status of
Individuals Ordered Deported, OIG-17-23-VR (January 2017).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
According to USCIS officials, the interface between SAVE and the
Department of Justice system containing up-to-date information on
deportable aliens did not become operational until August 2016. USCIS
needs to accelerate its implementation of DHS OIG recommendations,
particularly those designed to address National security gaps related
to processes for verifying an immigrant's legal status.
on-going audit work
Our considerable workload includes a number of on-going and
recently-completed matters involving USCIS, including:
Review of USCIS's N-400 Automation.--Discussed above.
Capabilities to Screen Social Media Use of Visa and Asylum
Seekers.--DHS has established a task force for using social
media to screen applicants for immigration benefits. In
connection with that effort, USCIS began pilots to expand
social media screening of immigration applicants. Additionally,
ICE independently began a pilot to use social media screening
during the visa issuance process.
However, in an audit report released last week, we found
that these pilots, on which DHS plans to base future
Department-wide use of social media screening, lack criteria
for measuring performance to ensure they meet their objectives.
Although the pilots include some objectives, such as
determining the effectiveness of an automated search tool and
assessing data collection and dissemination procedures, it is
not clear DHS is measuring and evaluating the pilots' results
to determine how well they are performing against set criteria.
Absent measurement criteria, the pilots may provide limited
information for planning and implementing an effective,
Department-wide future social media screening program.\9\
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\9\ DHS's Pilots for Social Media Screening Need Increased Rigor to
Ensure Scalability and Long-term Success (Redacted), OIG 17-40
(February 2017).
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H-2 Petition Fee Structure.--USCIS's H-2 program enables
employers to petition to bring temporary non-immigrant workers
into the United States. We performed this audit, released last
week, to determine whether the fee structure associated with H-
2 petitions is equitable and effective.
We found that the USCIS's H-2 petition fee structure is
inequitable and contributes to processing errors. Federal
guidelines indicate that beneficiaries should pay the cost of
services from which they benefit. However, USCIS charged
employers a flat fee regardless of whether it was to bring one
or hundreds of temporary non-immigrant workers into the United
States, creating greater hardship for smaller employers than
larger ones. Moreover, each worker listed on a petition must be
vetted through an extensive adjudication process, for the most
part within 15 days. Large petitions are complex and error-
prone when adjudicators rush to process them within required
time frames.\10\
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\9\ H-2 Petition Fee Structure is Inequitable and Contributes to
Processing Errors, OIG-17-42 (March 2017).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
USCIS H-1B Visa Program Abuse.--The focus of this audit is
to determine whether H-1B visa holders are actually working for
the employer for which they were approved, and whether visa
holders are being used to replace U.S. citizen workers.
Historical Fingerprint Enrollment (HFE) Identity Fraud.--The
focus of this audit is to determine how aliens whose
fingerprints were uploaded into IDENT through the HFE received
immigration benefits under another identity, the types of
benefits they received, and their country of origin.
Variations in Application Processing Times Among USCIS Field
Offices.--The focus of this audit is to identify the reason(s)
for variations in application processing times among USCIS
field offices.
Effectiveness of USCIS Medical Screening.--The focus of this
audit is to assess USCIS effectiveness in screening foreign
nationals to meet health-related standards of admissibility.
We will continue to exercise diligent oversight over USCIS--paying
particular attention to issues impacting National security--and,
consistent with our obligations under the Inspector General Act of
1978, will keep Congress fully and currently informed of our findings
and recommendations.
Mr. Chairman, this concludes my prepared statement. I am happy to
answer any questions you or other Members of the committee may have.
Mr. Perry. Chair thanks Mr. Roth.
The Chair now recognizes himself for 5 minutes of
questions.
Mr. Roth. I mean, you can hear in Ms. Scialabba's testimony
that it is indeed a daunting task, right? I think about
23,000--is that what you said--23,000 applicants a day that you
have to review?
We accept that it is difficult and it is large, but it is a
job that you have.
In November the OIG found that USCIS issued at least 19,000
green cards that duplicated existing cards or that had
incorrect information.
Per your testimony, Mr. Roth, and I think you just
mentioned it, that USCIS received over 200,000--200,000 reports
for approved applicants about missing green cards. Mr. Roth,
can you discuss the potential National security implications
regarding a lack of management and attention to green card
issuance and what the market may be for these green cards once
they are out there?
Mr. Roth. Certainly. It is an identity document that is
issued by the Federal Government, so you can use that identity
document for any one of a number of things. You can get a
driver's license, for example; you can get public benefits, for
example; you can get access to secure areas. For example, there
is something called the TWIC card, which is the Transportation
Worker Identity Card, that allows you to go into seaports and
other sensitive areas if you have the proper Federal
identification.
So that worries us. We talked to CBP and they said that
there is an on-going black market for those kinds of fraudulent
green cards that are used for nefarious purposes.
Mr. Perry. That sounds pretty significant. While in the
scale of the amount of information that Ms. Scialabba's agency
goes through maybe it is seen as minuscule or de minimis, but
if you are somebody that is aggrieved by somebody that used
them nefariously or, heaven forbid, there is an attack based on
the use of them, it is not going to be de minimus at that
point.
Let's turn a little bit to asylum tracking and fraud. The
GAO reported in 2015 that USCIS and the Department of Justice's
Executive Office for Immigration Review had limited
capabilities to detect asylum fraud, for which the GAO
concluded may affect the integrity of this--the asylum system.
The GAO also reported that neither DHS nor DOJ had assessed the
risks across the asylum process.
Ms. Scialabba, what are your plans to review these risks
across the entire system?
Ms. Scialabba. We are currently right now going through a
process where we are reviewing all of the vetting that we do
and all of the systems that we check, in terms of asylum and
refugee processing. I am assuming when you say ``asylum'' you
mean here in the United States.
Mr. Perry. Correct.
Ms. Scialabba. We are very careful with our asylum program.
We do a lot of training. We do a lot of country condition
training for asylum officers.
We also look to check every system that we can find that we
have access to in terms of data.
As I said, we are currently in the process of reviewing
that vetting process and what we are doing in the asylum
program to make sure we are covering as much as we can in terms
of trying to determine fraud.
We are also looking at some additional tools that will help
us identify schemes of fraud, where you have a situation where
maybe you have used the same address a hundred different times
to file asylum applications. In a paper-based system that is
hard to find.
Mr. Perry. Right.
Ms. Scialabba. That is why we need to go to an electronic
system. We need to be able----
Mr. Perry. Yes. There is an urgency----
Ms. Scialabba [continuing]. To analyze that----
Mr. Perry [continuing]. Connected with this.
Ms. Scialabba [continuing]. And be able to see that. Right
now we catch it sometimes. Most often it is an officer who will
notice it and refer it to a Federal----
Mr. Perry. You would agree that relying on just catching it
is not----
Ms. Scialabba. It is not sufficient.
Mr. Perry [continuing]. Not optimal, right?
Ms. Scialabba. It is not sufficient.
Mr. Perry. Ms. Harris, since the review is not completed
under the previous administration is it safe to say that those
potentially wanting to do harm may have been granted asylum by
providing fraudulent information to the U.S. Government?
Ms. Harris. Mr. Chairman, I think you are raising a very
good point in terms of the weaknesses associated with the
current process that USCIS uses to identify fraud risks more
strategically across the asylum program.
I think the important thing to keep in mind here is that
because of the deferral of the ELIS functionality, that USCIS
is not in a position to systematically identify these fraud
risks associated with the asylum applications. It is very
difficult for them since it is all essentially paper-based.
So, to the extent that that information can be captured
electronically so that software tools and other types of
automated tools can be used to identify systematically these
types of risks, that will put USCIS in a better position to
identify these types of risks as well as identify patterns and
trends.
Mr. Perry. All right.
Just for clarification, when we talk about fraud risks in
this regard I think maybe some people will assume that this has
to do maybe with identity theft or maybe some sub-level crimes,
infractions that maybe they won't find harmful to the general
populace. But when we are talking about fraud risk we are
talking about potential criminals and terrorists using this
information to compromise our National security.
So it is no small matter whatsoever. These fraud risks lead
to potentially horrific occurrences within the homeland, within
the contiguous and noncontiguous United States, and they are
exceptionally important.
With that, Chair now recognizes the Ranking Member, Mr.
Correa.
Mr. Correa. Thanks, Mr. Chair.
I just wanted to follow up on the Chair's questions in
terms of digitalizing this information seems to be a challenge,
yet it is one of the big, glaring weaknesses in the process.
So my question is: What do you need to go out and hire more
folks internally to essentially digitalize fingerprint cards,
digitalize other basic information that you need to cross-check
a lot of these applications?
Question to whoever wants to answer it.
Ms. Scialabba. I can answer that.
Let me first start by saying paper-based fingerprint cards
are not just a USCIS issue. You have got paper-based
fingerprint cards in local law enforcement; FBI still has
paper-based fingerprint cards.
They are everywhere, because back when you took those cards
there was no way to digitize them. Going back through the
process and trying to put those into a system and digitizing,
you are talking about millions of fingerprint cards.
I will say that the fingerprint cards that are now being
ingested into our database, ICE is the one that is doing that,
which is good because then we have that access to that
information so that we can review it. Once they have ingested
that information in, we have gone back and reviewed the cases
that were granted. We are in the process of actually reviewing
every single case that the inspector general referred to.
Matter of fact, we have finished the review of all those
cases and we are getting ready to refer the cases where we have
found that someone has another identity, because they had that
identity based on a paper-based fingerprint card that was not
digitized and was not available for anybody to see--not only
us; law enforcement, FBI, nobody could have seen that
fingerprint at the time. We have gone back, we have reviewed
all of those files, and we are getting ready to refer the cases
to the Department of Justice for prosecution.
Mr. Correa. So a step further to that, it is a National
issue then. It is not you----
Ms. Scialabba. It is a National issue.
Mr. Correa. So taking it a little iteration further, do you
coordinate with other international police organization--
Interpol, Mexico, Canada, some the others--in terms of sharing
some of that information to see if there are, in fact, some of
those organized crime groups outside the United States that
could possibly--some of that information assist you in that
vetting process?
Ms. Scialabba. We have some very good partners
internationally in terms of vetting, particularly the United
Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Canada. We have had robust
sharing agreements with them for some time.
Mr. Correa. Have you had those with Mexico?
Ms. Scialabba. We do get some information from Mexico.
Mainly that is through our law enforcement partners. But those
are the systems that we check.
I wanted to make one particular statement in terms of the
asylum fraud. When I talk about fraud I am talking about a
scheme of someone basically lying about whether or not they
actually have an asylum claim.
We check systems that will tell us if there is a record
that someone is a terrorist or if they have got a criminal
background. We continuously vet those and we would know if
there is any information available about someone being a
terrorist or somebody being watch-listed or somebody being a
criminal. We check those in our systems; it is not just ELIS.
We do TECS checks.
Mr. Correa. A follow-up question: The Chairman was talking
and made some very good comments about some of the citizenship
green cards that should not have been issued that were issued
because of internal mistakes, because your I.T. systems are not
up the way they should be. But converse to that, how many green
cards, how many citizenships have there been denied because of
mistakes the other way?
You understand what I am saying? If your information
systems are not working to the point where you deny somebody--
or you give somebody a citizenship, a green card they should
not have, are there mistakes being made we deny a green card or
citizenship to somebody who should have them?
Ms. Scialabba. I am not aware of that. I think if there is
a situation where somebody is denied citizenship or permanent
residence there are appeal rights that they have to----
Mr. Correa. Let me follow up one last question.
Ms. Scialabba. Sure.
Mr. Correa. I am running out of time.
Fraud, people getting information or documents they
shouldn't get, how many of those to your knowledge are due to
maybe folks on the inside that are being bought off or bribed?
In the years past I know some of the border agents were
actually conspiring with bad elements to do things they
shouldn't have been doing.
Are you aware of any those cases inside that may be taking
advantage of the weaknesses right now in the information
systems?
Ms. Scialabba. I am not aware of any. You are talking about
internal security----
Mr. Correa. That is correct.
Ms. Scialabba [continuing]. And we are very careful that
internal security as well as external security. I am not aware
of any of those situations.
Most of the time when a green card goes to the wrong place
it is because we didn't have the right address. We use the last
address that we had and this is a population that moves
frequently. So we have mailed the card to the last known
address and it turns out that that is not the address the
person is still at.
Mr. Correa. Mr. Chair, I yield my time.
Mr. Perry. Chair thanks the gentlemen.
The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Louisiana, Mr.
Higgins.
Mr. Higgins. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Roth. my question is going to be directed at you, sir.
I have been a law enforcement professional for the last 13
years and I have personally--I personally processed several
thousand paper fingerprint cards. But during the course of my
career, AFIS came into a full head of steam within the law
enforcement community.
Are you familiar with AFIS, sir, the Automated Fingerprint
Identification System?
Mr. Roth. Yes, I am.
Mr. Higgins. As far as I know, in the civilian world of law
enforcement every jail from sea to shining sea has been using
digitalized finger printing for 25 years.
So it is striking for me, from a perspective of reality,
that the civilian world has responded to digitalized
fingerprints for obvious reasons. People have had computers on
our desks since the 1980's, and yet we are listening to
testimony stating that somehow the Federal Government, after
billions of dollars of expenditure of the people's treasure,
has not quite caught up with that.
Can you explain that please, sir?
Mr. Roth. Sure. I mean, DHS right now is completely
digitalized with regard to fingerprints. They use the same kind
of system that the FBI uses. It is actually a different system,
but they talk to each other. So there is complete uniformity
with regard to currently how it is that, for example,
immigrants are processed or if, in fact, somebody gets picked
up and then an order of deportation is issued or an order of
removal is issued, then those digital fingerprints will be
available for adjudication.
The difficulty was in the past--so this is before the
digitization occurred, which was really for DHS right around
the time of its inception around the early 2000, 2003, 2004
time frame--they were still using paper fingerprints. So you
would have an individual who was audit status who gets picked
up and he gets an order of removal. They rolled his
fingerprints just like they do for everybody else, and then
they stick those fingerprints into the alien--the paper-based
alien file that CIS keeps or that the Department of Justice
keeps or ICE keeps indicating that, in fact, there was a final
order of removal against this person.
Now, 10 years later this guy, No. 1, may have never left,
or No. 2, had come back and, in fact, applied for both status
as a green card and then permanent--or citizenship. There was
no way to access that paper-based fingerprint that got rolled
10 years before.
So right now the system works perfectly fine. The issue was
that they knew that they had this large repository of
fingerprints that were paper-based and they didn't take the
extra effort to digitize those prints. That is one of the
things that we found. Frankly, if we hadn't done the audit I
think we would still be sitting here with a whole host of
paper-based files.
Mr. Higgins. Immigration benefit fraud involves a willful
misrepresentation of material fact for the purpose of obtaining
an immigration benefit, such as asylum status, without lawful
entitlement. The Department of Homeland Security and Department
of Justice have established dedicated anti-fraud entities
within USCIS.
Referring back to the fingerprint issue, does the USCIS
I.T. system, sir, communicate with AFIS?
Mr. Roth. The CIS system uses the DHS information system,
which is called TECS, T-E-C-S, which, in fact, then----
Mr. Higgins. OK. Do those systems talk to each other?
Mr. Roth [continuing]. Communicates--yes. Justice and DHS
talk to each other when it comes to those things.
Mr. Higgins. The paper print files that have been taken
prior to the current digitalized age, as the individuals
interact with immigration services in some way, are their
fingerprints upgraded to digital status?
Because in a civilian world, if, you know, repeat offenders
that get arrested again and again is a common occurrence, and
as they come through the jail if they haven't been arrested
for, you know, 5, 6, 8, 10 years, then it doesn't matter that
their original print files were paper because every time they
get booked they get loaded into AFIS.
Is there any system within the Federal Government's effort
to control illegal and criminal status of immigrants--is there
any effort to digitalize prints?
With that, my time has expired, so perhaps in a further
moment, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Roth. Sure, of course. Yes. What we had found in our
audit was the fact that there was about 150,000 fingerprints
that had not yet been digitized. They had digitized a number of
them, functionally ran out of money, and then stopped the
process.
As a result of our audit report, they found the money. In
fact, they should have all those fingerprints digitized by the
end of the fiscal year.
So to answer your question, as far as it concerns orders of
removal--in other words, the CIS and ICE deportation efforts--
those will be fully digitized by the end of the fiscal year.
Mr. Higgins. Thank you, sir.
Mr. Perry. Chair thanks the gentleman.
The Chair now recognizes the gentlewoman from New York,
Miss Rice.
Miss Rice. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Roth, can I take you back to I think it was in 2008,
when IBM was hired to--at a cost of half a billion dollars to
put the system together, a--you know----
Mr. Roth. That is correct.
Miss Rice. Can you just walk us through that?
Mr. Roth. I can certainly talk about what it is that we
saw, which was, you know, that was the old sort of what they
call the waterfall system, where you would hire some major
contractor who would, say, you know, create a system for
beginning to end, a single unitary system. It would take years
of development.
Of course, the I.T. systems don't stop. In other words, the
technology improves but somehow what it is that you contracted
for doesn't move.
As a result of what was, you know, clearly an unfortunate
situation there, CIS has moved. I believe in her testimony Ms.
Scialabba talked about the fact that they moved from this
waterfall system to an agile system, which is instead of doing
one massive thing with one massive contractor we will have a
bunch of different pieces of the process contracted out and the
Government itself will be the integrator. In other words, we
will contract out this part of it to one company and that part
of it to another company and we will do it in smaller pieces
and then implement it only in pieces.
So that was the theory. It didn't quite work out that way,
and I think everybody at this table acknowledges that the agile
system that CIS used had some problems with it.
Miss Rice. So why? I mean, if the waterfall system was so
bad, this system was supposed to be better. Why was it not?
Mr. Roth. There are a couple reasons. One is it requires
the Federal Government to do the integration, so it requires a
fair level of sophistication by sort of feds, Government
individuals, to be able to do that in the right way. Second, it
requires----
Miss Rice. Are you saying that we don't have that
sophistication?
Mr. Roth. I think that was one of the core issues that we
found during the series of our audits, that, in fact, there
wasn't that kind of expertise available.
Second, it requires communication between those folks who
actually use the system and the people who are designing and
implementing the system. We found that that was problematic
with regard to the CIS roll-out.
Third, there is this issue of governance. In other words,
the people at the top have to have clear information and an
understanding of what the progress was. Quite frankly, I think
that the senior leadership at CIS wasn't getting the kind of
information it needed to make intelligent decisions.
In January of last year I had a meeting with the head of
CIS--not Ms. Scialabba, but her predecessor--who seemed unaware
and sort-of highly resistant to some of our audit findings, our
proposed audit findings. Frankly, the only thing that we could
figure out is that he wasn't getting the kind of information
that he needed to make the kinds of decisions that he needed to
make.
So those were some of the issues. The other is this idea of
agile technology or agile development. It means you are going
to take the software and you are going to put it out in what is
called a minimal viable product, which means, you know, we are
going to do small pieces but those pieces are actually going to
work.
So one of things, for example, in today's testimony is
like, ``Well, we are going to roll out the N-400. And we are
prepared to pull it back if it doesn't work.'' Well, that is
not a minimally viable product.
If, in fact, you roll it out and 4 months later you have a
backlog of 250,000 applications that you are still not--haven't
been able to grind through, that means you released a product
that was not minimally viable. What you should have done is
engage in further testing, sort-of stress testing, of the
software before you rolled it out.
So to my point of view, the--this idea that, well, we will
put it out when if it breaks and it breaks the system and we
have a quarter-million applicants, well we will then just pull
it back. That is not agile. That is just not the right way to
roll out software.
Miss Rice. So I see a lot of parallels between the complete
and utter waste of money here. I mean, now this--it goes from
$2.1 billion to over $3 billion, right, in cost? Right?
Mr. Roth. You know, we don't know exactly what it is going
to cost at the end of the day.
Miss Rice. That is not even the end of the day.
So, you know, I sit on the Veterans' Affairs Committee,
too, and I personally think that the V.A. should not be in the
business--they are not general contractors. They should not be
in the business of building anything. There is a hole in the
ground, practically, in Aurora, Colorado and, you know, I don't
know how many billions of dollars later there is nothing there.
So, in light of the lack of expertise that you are saying
exists in CIS, No. 1, from a technical standpoint, and in light
of President Trump's desire to cut budgets that are going to
affect CIS, how are they going to do what they have to do with
even less money?
Mr. Roth. Well, CIS is fee-based so they will not be as
affected, I think, by whatever budget cuts occur. But I would
agree that this is a high-risk system. It has been----
Miss Rice. The hiring freezes--that is not affected? You
can't get the talent if you--if there is a hiring freeze and
you can't hire people.
Mr. Roth. I don't think there is any question that this is
a high-risk system and there are some hard decisions to be made
with regard to how CIS moves forward.
Miss Rice. I am sorry, can you repeat that?
Mr. Roth. Sure. I don't think anybody disputes that this is
a high-risk system and that the history of it has shown that it
is a high-risk system, and I think CIS is going to make--have
to make some hard decisions as to how they are going to move
forward on this.
Miss Rice. Well, so they need money, they need real talent,
and they need real management, right?
Mr. Roth. Correct.
Miss Rice. OK.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Perry. Chair thanks the gentlelady.
The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from South Carolina,
Mr. Duncan.
Mr. Duncan. Chairman Perry, thank you.
I would be remiss if I didn't mention the court decision
yesterday on President Trump's Executive Order to pause
refugees and visa issuance to people from six Middle East and
North Africa countries. The judge, this is judicial activism at
its worst when the judge uses political rhetoric in his
decision--not the statute, not the law, because the statute and
the law is pretty doggone clear that the President has the
ability to do this; it has been used from Jimmy Carter
forward--but use campaign rhetoric to pause or halt through
judicial activism an Executive Order.
These are the same countries that President Obama signed
into law that do not have the records necessary for the vetting
process, don't cooperate with U.S. processes. It is where
terrorists are embedded.
So if it was truly a Muslim ban a rhetorical question to
ask ourselves is: Why wouldn't it list the largest Muslim
population countries in the world? If I ask you that question
you may say, well, that is Saudi Arabia or some.
No, it is Indonesia. Second is Pakistan. Third is India.
So it is not a Muslim ban. It is targeting countries that
we know ISIS has infiltrated.
Take ISIS at their word. They said they are going to
infiltrate our refugee program and our visa program to try to
come to this country to do harm to America and Western
interests. The facts are clear that these countries are
harboring terrorists.
Case in point: Countries that do cooperate with the United
States, with the requirements of Department of State and
Homeland Security, aren't listed. In fact, Iraq was removed
from the previous Executive Order listing to this one because
they have stepped up to the plate to meet the requirements the
United States puts in place for vetting of visa applicants and
refugees.
So Iraq isn't on this Executive Order. It shows you the
process is working because the countries are actually changing
their processes.
Let me shift gears. Forty-nine percent of all illegal
aliens in this country are visa overstays. Forty-nine percent.
You pick a number, 12 million or 20 million. Half of those
are people that came to this country with a permission slip
that the people sitting at this table are responsible for
giving: USCIS and Department of State.
They came with a visa--work visa, student visa, you name
it. They were vetted; they were granted a visa of our country,
a permission slip. We invited them to come to our country.
They decided they liked it and decided to violate our law
and stay in this country. They are visa overstays and they are
here illegally because they are out of legal status.
That is something we can work on. That is where we need a
biometric entry-exit visa system so we know when people enter
our country and leave our country, leaving our country being
the big part of it.
That is low-hanging fruit. We know the names of these
folks; we know where they were going in most cases. In a work
visa or student visa that is a great place to start for
enforcement of the laws on the books that say you can't
overstay your visa.
We are going to give you a period of time to be in our
country. We will even allow you graciously to extend that
through the process. But if you overstayed you are in violation
of the law and it is time to go.
So that is an enforcement aspect. A biometric entry-exit
systems being worked on, but we are not there yet.
So regardless of how well USCIS and Department of State do
their job on visa screening and refugee processing or whatnot,
if we don't have a good biometric entry-exit system I don't
think we are fulfilling the wishes of the American people.
So, Ms. Scialabba, I ask you, where are we on that? Because
that question may have been asked by someone, but where we are
on the biometric entry-exit system that we have talked about in
this committee since I joined it January 2011?
Ms. Scialabba. Congressman, I know that they are working on
that. That is a DHS priority.
It is Customs and Border Protection that is responsible for
the entry-exit system, so I am not really in a position to give
you a good update on where they are with the system. But I know
for a fact, because I have been in meetings where they are
actually talking about updating and formalizing that system.
Mr. Duncan. Right.
Ms. Scialabba. So I know they are working on it, but I am
not in a position to give you a detailed answer on that.
Mr. Duncan. Let me ask you this: Do other countries do
biometric entry-exit visa screening or entry-exit screening?
Ms. Scialabba. Some do, some don't.
Mr. Duncan. Go to Japan, you put your thumbprint on a
screen when you enter the country and when you leave. They know
when you are there.
Ms. Scialabba. I think----
Mr. Duncan. Why don't we tap into these other countries'
technology and utilize some of that here? Let's cut this
process down. They have got something that is working. Rely on
our allies.
Mr. Chairman, I think that is just a simple start. We are
going to spend billions of dollars on this; we are not even
there yet.
I think that is something that works.
I had a lot of other questions. If we go to round two I
will be glad to ask them then.
I yield back.
Mr. Perry. Chair thanks the gentlemen from South Carolina.
The Chair now recognizes the gentlewoman from California,
Ms. Barragan.
Ms. Barragan. Thank you.
I would be remiss if I didn't say something in reply to
that. I am grateful for the judiciary system; it is a checks
and balance system that we have in this country that is meant
to provide the oversight when you have a President who is doing
whatever he wants to do, regardless of the law.
This second travel ban was just the same ban in different
wrapping paper. It had the same discriminatory intent, and we
can't--we don't even know what this President's financial ties
are to countries that are not on the list because he won't
release that information.
Activism? I would say not. The fact that Iraq was taken off
the list I think is just another indicator of how random the
process has been.
But I will switch gears here and go on to what we are
talking about today. I want to talk about the merit-based
system that the President has indicated we are going to move
to.
You know, my parents were immigrants from Mexico. My mom
had only a third-grade education. Under a merit-based system
she probably never would have been able to come here. I
certainly wouldn't be sitting here today if that were the case.
So the President has announced that he is going to move for
this merit-based immigration system, breaking from decades of
long practice of giving families--preference to families of
U.S.-based citizens. While in many ways a patchwork, the U.S.
immigration system is already attracting many of the best and
brightest from around the globe.
Trump's characterization of the U.S. immigration as a flood
of low-skilled migrants draining public finances is flawed. New
arrivals to the United States are increasingly better-educated
and well-off.
Ms. Scialabba, what can be USCIS fix to speed up processing
for highly-skilled immigrants?
Ms. Scialabba. Well, as I am sure you are aware, there are
visas available for highly-skilled immigrants that we process
on a regular basis. I think if you are referring to the premium
processing that was suspended for a temporary period of time--
--
Ms. Barragan. Well, you raise a good point. Earlier this
month the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service announced
that starting on April 3 it would temporarily suspend premium
processing for the H-1B visas and the suspension may last up to
6 months?
Ms. Scialabba. Yes.
Ms. Barragan. What I would like to do is I would like to
ask the Chairman unanimous consent to enter a release from the
USCIS announcing this temporary suspension into the record.
Mr. Perry. Without objection, so ordered.
[The information follows:]
Submitted for the Record by Hon. Barragan
USCIS Will Temporarily Suspend Premium Processing for All H-1B
Petitions
https://www.uscis.gov/news/alerts/uscis-will-temporarily-suspend-
premium-processing-all-h-1b-petitions
Starting April 3, 2017, USCIS will temporarily suspend premium
processing for all H-1B petitions. This suspension may last up to 6
months. While H-1B premium processing is suspended, petitioners will
not be able to file Form I-907, Request for Premium Processing Service
for a Form I-129, Petition for a Nonimmigrant Worker which requests the
H-1B nonimmigrant classification. We will notify the public before
resuming premium processing for H-1B petitions.
who is affected
The temporary suspension applies to all H-1B petitions filed on or
after April 3, 2017. Since FY18 cap-subject H-1B petitions cannot be
filed before April 3, 2017, this suspension will apply to all petitions
filed for the FY18 H-1B regular cap and master's advanced degree cap
exemption (the ``master's cap''). The suspension also applies to
petitions that may be cap-exempt.
While premium processing is suspended, we will reject any Form I-
907 filed with an H-1B petition. If the petitioner submits one combined
check for both the Form I-907 and Form I-129 H-1B fees, we will have to
reject both forms.
We will continue to premium process Form I-129 H-1B petitions if
the petitioner properly filed an associated Form I-907 before April 3,
2017. Therefore, we will refund the premium processing fee if:
(1) The petitioner filed the Form I-907 for an H-1B petition before
April 3, 2017, and
(2) We did not take adjudicative action on the case within the 15-
calendar-day processing period.
This temporary suspension of premium processing does not apply to
other eligible nonimmigrant classifications filed on Form I-129.
requesting expedited processing
While premium processing is suspended, petitioners may submit a
request to expedite an H-1B petition if they meet the criteria on the
Expedite Criteria webpage. It is the petitioner's responsibility to
demonstrate that they meet at least one of the expedite criteria, and
we encourage petitioners to submit documentary evidence to support
their expedite request.
We review all expedite requests on a case-by-case basis and
requests are granted at the discretion of the office leadership.
why we are temporarily suspending premium processing for h-1b petitions
This temporary suspension will help us to reduce overall H-1B
processing times. By temporarily suspending premium processing, we will
be able to:
Process long-pending petitions, which we have currently been
unable to process due to the high volume of incoming petitions
and the significant surge in premium processing requests over
the past few years; and
Prioritize adjudication of H-1B extension of status cases
that are nearing the 240-day mark.
Ms. Barragan. OK, thank you.
So companies can use these visas to hire foreign workers to
temporarily fill these positions in the United States. How
would you implement the President's merit-based system when
this administration is suspending a program that permits high
entry for highly-skilled immigrants?
Ms. Scialabba. Let me first say the program is not
suspended. We suspend premium processing, which means we would
have to process the application in 15 days.
The applications that come in beginning in April--we see a
flood of applications that come on, usually it is 200,000 or
more. We are unable to process those premium processing--we
can't process cases in 15 days when we get 200,000 in a week.
It is only suspended temporarily.
Once we lift the suspension, people are able to file for
premium processing and we will process their application within
15 days.
I think the other thing to keep in mind is that these visas
that they are applying for in April are not available until
October. So what we do is we take them in, we process them, we
organize them, and then when we are ready we let people file
for the premium processing if they think that that is what they
need, but the visas aren't available until October in any event
so it is really not delaying anybody from getting their visa
when they are ready to pick up the visa.
Ms. Barragan. So what is being suspended? Does that mean we
were not doing it before?
Ms. Scialabba. No, we were doing it before. Before we have
the--before we open up the H-1B season, which is when everybody
can file, we are taking in those visas on a regular basis and a
regular process. You can apply for premium processing at that
point.
What happens in April is that we open a window where people
file--and usually it is only for a week because we get so many
applications in that time period. We usually get in between
200,000, 240,000 applications in 1-week's time.
Just getting the data entered into our systems and getting
those processed so that they are ready for adjudication takes
some time. That is why we are unable when we--when we suspend,
the only thing we are suspending is the premium processing. We
are not promising to do anybody's visa, anybody's petition in
15 days.
Once we get all that data into the system, once we are
ready to turn it back on, we put premium processing back in
play and people can then file, if they want, to have their
adjudication done within 15 days as opposed to 30, 60, 90,
whatever our processing time is at the time.
Ms. Barragan. Thank you.
My time has expired. I yield back.
Mr. Perry. Chair thanks the gentlelady. Chair is going to
open a second round of questioning here.
Mr. Roth, looking through your testimony regarding the
USCIS Systematic Alien Verification System for Entitlements it
says, ``In most cases, an error in SAVE verification means that
a deportable individual can receive benefits ranging from
public assistance to a driver's license,'' and you already
mentioned in previous testimony, the Transportation Worker
Identification Card, which allows them unescorted access to
secure areas of the Nation's vessels.
It appears that, in your testimony, that USCIS has failed
to identify the deportable status of 12 percent of individuals
submitted through SAVE.
I am wondering, you know, those, according to your
testimony, are individuals that the court had ordered be
deported for things like felony convictions. I imagine they run
the gamut, including things like extortion, assault, burglary,
drugs, et cetera.
What kind of numbers are we talking about, Mr. Roth?
Mr. Roth. What we did was we did a representative sample,
which is typical of what we do in an audit. We try to make it
large enough where it is statistically significant.
So we can't estimate exactly how many we are talking about
the entire universe, but what we found in doing the statistical
sampling was that about 1 in 8 of those queries, in fact, did
not turn up the fact that somebody actually had been ordered
removed from the country for, you know, a variety of reasons,
as you said.
That audit was in 2012. We made recommendations. CIS
followed the recommendations, but in this follow-up audit that
we did--that we just released it took 46 months to get a
solution finally on-line. That was one of the things that to me
struck me about this entire process was there seemed to be a
lack of urgency in fixing the problem in a reasonable amount of
time.
Mr. Perry. So am I to understand, based on what you just
said, that that situation has now been rectified, that we are
not at 12 percent of deportable individuals in the SAVE program
maintaining status here in United States? That has been
rectified?
Mr. Roth. That is correct. Functionally what happened was
SAVE was not talking to the right kind of databases.
Mr. Perry. Right, right. Which is good news, and we applaud
and commend the Department for taking care of that.
That is with--Mr. Roth, that is with records that we know
about, right? That is able to vet, so to speak, compare the
application against information that we have to see whether the
applicant is worthy, for lack of a better term, or justified in
maintaining their status in the United States, right? That is
generally, if I could describe that, you are comparing and----
Mr. Roth. It is actually simpler than that because there is
no judgment that, I mean----
Mr. Perry. Right.
Mr. Roth. If they have been ordered removed then they have
been ordered removed. It is not, ``Oh, we are going to assess
their risks.''
Mr. Perry. Right.
Mr. Roth. They have no basis to be in the country so they
can't get any benefits.
Mr. Perry. Right.
So in previous testimony, Ms. Scialabba--and you can
correct me; I just want to make sure I understand this
correctly--you are saying that you check all the known
databases, et cetera, for asylees to determine whether they
might be criminals or terrorists, et cetera. You gave us this
impression and I just want to make sure if we have the correct
impression, that even though it might be a paper-based system
and even though you might not have digital information, you are
going to go ahead and check everything to vet these
individuals.
But what if you don't have anything to vet against, is my
question. That is a concern for anybody coming in the country,
whether it is through USCIS, whether it is through the United
Nations, et cetera. Before you answer, I would just like to
hear from Ms. Harris on this particular issue.
If you can shed any light to the fact, because I get the
impression based on that testimony that there is really nothing
to be concerned about; all this is being checked. But is that
true or not true, in your opinion?
Ms. Harris. Mr. Chairman, unfortunately we have--I am not
in the--I am not the best expert within GAO to answer that
question, so I would like to take that for the record.
But I can tell you that we do have on-going work on the
SAVE program as well as work related to refugee vetting. So
that work will be released I believe in the spring time frame.
So I would like to get that information for you.
Mr. Perry. OK. Well, springtime starts I think in about a
week. Is that about right? So what kind of time frame are we
talking about, Ms. Harris, if you know?
Ms. Harris. I believe in the May time frame.
Mr. Perry. OK. In the May time frame.
Ms. Harris. Yes.
Mr. Perry. All right. We are hoping it is a little warmer
and hospitable outside. But we will look forward to that
report.
In my remaining 20 seconds, Ms. Scialabba, if you want to
enumerate?
Ms. Scialabba. Yes. What I was saying was that the systems
that we can identify and that we can link to, we check. As I
said before, I was the associate director for refugee asylum
international operation. When we started processing Iraqi
refugees we made a concerted effort to go out to the intel
community, the law enforcement community, to find what other
databases there were.
We were able to get the Department of Defense to put their
information into our IDENT system at Department of Homeland
Security so that we had access to that information, too. But
before that happened we were running our checks through--it is
called ABIS at the Department of Defense because they had a lot
of information on the Iraq population.
We continue to review that constantly and always because
there are always databases being developed; there are always
systems that we aren't necessarily aware of because they are in
the intel community and they don't necessarily let us know what
they have. It is an on-going process. We have never stop
looking for more.
Mr. Perry. We appreciate and encourage and--your diligence,
and we applaud that diligence. But at the same time, especially
when you mention Iraq, which is very different, I think, from
countries like Iran or Syria in databases, and the concern is
that even though USCIS might seek out other databases, and
diligently does so, as it should, some of these individuals--
maybe many of these individuals--there is nothing to check
against. There is no way to vet them because there is no
database to refer to. But I don't want to keep going on.
Chair now recognizes the Ranking Member, Mr. Correa.
Mr. Correa. Thanks, Mr. Chairman.
I do have a follow-up question on one of the comments made
by our good colleague from South Carolina. He said 49 percent
of all the undocumented are overstays. Do you have any
information from what countries those overstays are from? If
you don't have it I would like to get that information some
other time--very soon, hopefully.
Ms. Scialabba. We can get that information for you, I
believe, from the Department of Homeland Security. It is not
information that USCIS would normally maintain----
Mr. Correa. OK.
Ms. Scialabba [continuing]. But I am sure we can get it
from the Department of Homeland----
Mr. Correa. The breakdown is, you know, are those
educational, work? What overstays are those? You don't have it,
but love to get it.
Ms. Scialabba. I will look to see what the Department has.
Mr. Correa. In a timely basis. Thank you very much.
The other question I have is related to the EB-5 visas.
Those are the, I guess, investment visas.
There have been accusations of fraud, abuse, internal
influence in issuing these. These are very popular. I know in
my district a lot of folks get together, you need some money to
invest, you go out and round up some investors from overseas,
you put the project together.
Is there any follow-up to assure that the requirements to
get the EB-5 are actually complied with, and what--do they
actually create the 10 permanent U.S. jobs, so on and so forth?
Is there any follow-up at all? Is it just certification up
front? You can invest half a million dollars, you get your
visa, and nothing else is followed up on these visas.
Ms. Scialabba. There is follow-up, particularly when they
apply to remove the condition on the permanent residence. They
have to prove and establish that they created the 10 jobs, that
the--whatever the--whatever they developed, whether it is a
store or whatever the enterprise is, that it is still
functioning and that it is still viable. So at that point there
is follow-up.
But we have also implemented a process where we go out to
visit the various enterprises that have been established to
make sure they are operating, that they are what they say they
are, that they actually exist.
Mr. Correa. Do you visit all of them or just a sample?
Ms. Scialabba. A sampling, it is a sampling of them for
quality assurance.
Mr. Correa. OK.
My final question or few seconds I have left is we have
heard that your predecessor, in terms of the I.T., the
challenges, we had an audit and that person refused to
acknowledge that audit. It seems like we had a situation where
folks kind-of buried their head in the sand or in a hole and
not really acknowledged the challenges that were being put
forth.
You, ma'am, have about what, a couple of months left in the
agency--3?
Ms. Scialabba. Two weeks.
Mr. Correa. Two weeks. Oh, my gosh. Time flies.
So what would your recommendation be in terms of this
committee--through the Chair I would ask that--to make sure
that we continue to follow up, to make sure that that situation
does not repeat itself, meaning that we have consistent
diligence to assure that the I.T. is actually making progress?
Ms. Scialabba. I can assure you that USCIS knows that the
wave of the future is electronic and that we have to have a
system that works for us. We have made great progress and great
strides, I think, in terms of our contracting, in terms of how
we are rolling out our software.
I would say the system is not failing. We have processed
over 100,000 N-400's in that system; we have processed almost a
million green cards in that--I-90 green card replacements in
that system. We have also processed I think 750,000 immigrant
visa fees in that system.
It is not failing. It has----
Mr. Correa. Madam, I don't believe the issue is failure.
The issue is progress, or the lack thereof, in a timely manner.
So I would ask my Chair to come back very soon to again ask
these same questions to make sure we are all on the same page,
so to speak.
Ms. Scialabba. We are happy to come and brief the committee
and the staff whenever you would like.
Mr. Correa. Thank you.
I yield the rest of my time, sir.
Mr. Perry. Gentleman yields.
The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from South Carolina,
Mr. Duncan.
Mr. Duncan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Employers and law enforcement officers are using social
media as a way to screen potential applicants for jobs, or
fighting crime, looking for suspects. I think it would surprise
me--people--the amount of social media activity in other
countries rivals that of the usage here in America.
So, Ms. Scialabba, to what extent does the USCIS use social
media to adjudicate applications for immigrant and nonimmigrant
benefits?
Ms. Scialabba. We are currently using social media to vet
refugee applications. We are in the process of rolling that out
farther and piloting it for other applications that we use.
The social media issue for USCIS is that we do large
volume. If you are looking at the social media for someone that
is under investigation or an individual that you are looking at
it is much easier to do; if you are trying to process, I don't
know, 20,000 applications at a time and you are trying to vet
20,000 people through social media, it is really not possible.
So we have to do some risk analysis, which is what we are
in the process of doing, to see which visas are most likely to
yield the most when we do social media vetting. Obviously, we
are doing it for all of the refugees; we are going to start
doing it for asylum; one of the things that we are looking at
piloting is for the K visas.
So we are rolling out and using social media in a much more
robust way than we have in the past, and we will continue to
look at that and review it and use social media as best we can
to ferret out anybody who means to do harm to the United States
or fraud. We have seen some fraud, too, with social media.
Mr. Duncan. Thank you. I hope you do. I think that is the
right move to utilize more and more of that.
There has been some talk today about electronic records,
and we all know how electronic records have helped expedite
things in our life, whether it is medical records that can be
sent easily from the doctor to the hospital. But there is
always a fear of hacking, and we saw what happened with the OPM
with thousands or millions of employment records, having access
to those that could lead to identity theft and other things.
So is this a concern, Mr. Roth, of DHS? What are some
safeguards that you all are looking at with regard to--these
are noncitizens, but they still have private information that
is part of the screening process. So what are we doing to
safeguard their information, as well, because I think other
countries would be interested in that?
Mr. Roth. I share your concern with that. Particularly as
you roll out new software you don't actually know what the
security protocols or what--how secure, in fact, that system
is.
It is something that we are concerned about. We haven't
done any formal work on it because, of course, the problem is
ELIS is very much a work in progress so it is very difficult to
assess the security configurations of something that hasn't yet
rolled out.
But we are concerned just based on CIS's challenges in
getting software that works. So if they can't get software that
works, we certainly have some issues with whether or not it is
secure.
Mr. Duncan. Right. I think there is always a fear of--even
in closed systems that aren't connected to the internet in any
way, not connected to any outside electronic source for tapping
into, that someone on the inside could always print it off, USB
drive or something, to take those documents, as we saw recently
in another agency. So part of me likes the paper side of it,
but I understand that is not feasible.
Mr. Chairman, it is a great hearing. I appreciate the
feedback from the witnesses, and I yield back.
Mr. Perry. Chair thanks the gentlemen.
The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Louisiana, Mr.
Higgins.
Mr. Higgins. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Roth. I am going to ask you a few yes-or-no questions.
Then I will give you an opportunity to expound, sir.
Would you agree, from your perspective, that the Federal
Government is responsible to the American people to maintain
our sovereign borders and to protect our citizenry from those
who would do us harm that would enter our borders under false
pretense?
Mr. Roth. Yes.
Mr. Higgins. Do we rely upon partnering with cooperative
and capable foreign governments regarding their own vetting of
those that they would issue immigrant visas for, those that
would apply for legal status within the United States? Do we
rely upon the cooperation and capability of our foreign
partners?
Mr. Roth. That is my understanding. I think that is best
addressed to CIS. We haven't done any audits on it.
Mr. Higgins. All right. Thank you sir.
From your perspective, would you agree that I.T.
capabilities and digitalizing technologies increase and improve
every year?
Mr. Roth. Yes, I believe that is the case.
Mr. Higgins. Yes, sir.
In 2009 I worked a case regarding identity theft,
fraudulent checks, forged checks, and fraudulent identification
in conjunction with treasury agents of the Secret Service. I
was presented with driver's licenses that were completely false
that I could not determine as a veteran law enforcement agent
were fake. This was in 2009.
The source of those driver's licenses, those fraudulent
documents, was a booth in a flea market in Houston.
If we rely upon our partners in foreign governments that
are cooperative and capable to vet their own citizenry prior to
their intended effort to enter our country, when we are
responsible to protect the sovereignty of our borders, if they
have no capable or cooperative vetting procedure in those
nations, and if those nations are known to include high
populations and dense populations of terrorist-leaning
populace, how can we possibly, given the nature of technology,
how can we possibly be sure if we don't have--from your
perspective as a cop, how can we possibly be sure that those
nations are not allowing their citizenry to attempt to enter
our country with excellently forged documents and
identification papers and means by which to enter our country
with fraudulent intent?
Mr. Roth. Well, you raise a good point, which is you are
only as good as the information you get. But in your
circumstance, for example, the United States, one of the most
sophisticated nations on the planet, we have abilities--or bad
actors have the abilities to create false identifications.
So while it would be best to rely on our foreign partners
that are more sophisticated, there is risk all over the
process. Whether it is with our more sophisticated foreign
partners or our less sophisticated foreign partners, we are
always going to have the risk that people who are bad actors
will use the system to come into the country.
The question is: How do we control that risk? What process
do we put in place to minimize the risk that we all sort-of
identify as out there?
Mr. Higgins. Thank you, sir.
Mr. Chairman, I would encourage my colleagues on this
subcommittee and from both sides of the aisle to maintain a
sober diligence regarding the way we approach allowing foreign
nationals to seek entry to our country as we sit with full
knowledge of the fact that there is certainly the capability to
produce fraudulent documents. I would hope we stop them where
they come from rather than letting them make it to the booth in
a flea market in Houston.
With that I yield my time, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Perry. Chair thanks the gentleman.
Ms. Scialabba, thank you for your service to the country.
It has been a long time and we wish you well moving forward.
For your successor, I would say that there are still
significant questions and concerns that remain. While we
applaud you for getting it together, so to speak, for things
like the SAVE program, 45 months is way too long when I think
about somebody that is listed by the courts as ``should be
deported,'' and we don't pick that up. If that individual has
harmed--would harm a member of my family or your family or any
American's family, that is just something that is unacceptable
to us, and I know you understand that.
So while we appreciate the good work, 45 months is too long
and this is--there is an urgency that is attached to this that
the Department must, in my opinion, be imbued with.
So we wish you well. We hope to see your successor.
For your staff that is here with you, we hope to see again
and we hope that we can talk under better conditions in the
future.
With that, the Chair thanks the witnesses for their
valuable testimony and the Members for their questions. Members
may have some additional questions for the witnesses, and we
will ask you to respond--you folks on the panel--in writing.
Pursuant to committee rule VII(D), the hearing record will
remain open for 10 days.
Without objection, the subcommittee stands adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 11:02 a.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
----------
Questions From Subcommittee Chairman Scott Perry for Lori Scialabba
Question 1a. The Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) requires
USCIS to conduct an initial interview for asylum applications within 45
days after the date the application is filed, and to make a decision
within 180 days after the date the application is filed, unless there
are exceptional circumstances. However, USCIS has reported that its
increasing caseloads make this time frame unachievable.
How long does USCIS currently take to process asylum applications?
Question 1b. To what extent is this time frame affected by paper-
based documentation processing?
Answer. Response was not received at the time of publication.
Question 2a. Mr. Roth testified that USCIS plans to complete its
efforts to digitize paper fingerprint records by the end of fiscal year
2017.
Is USCIS on track to meet this time frame?
Question 2b. If not, when does USCIS expect to complete these
efforts?
Answer. Response was not received at the time of publication.
Question 3. A September 2016 GAO report on the EB-5 program focused
primarily on the risk of fraud associated with the program. However,
press reporting and other sources have also expressed that there are
some National security risks associated with the program, such as
reporting that USCIS granted EB-5 visas to individuals involved with
smuggling. What steps has USCIS taken to address these security risks?
Answer. Response was not received at the time of publication.
Question 4. GAO and the OIG have reported on the challenges that
relying on paper-based documentation poses for information sharing with
Federal partners. How does USCIS mitigate those risks?
Answer. Response was not received at the time of publication.
Question 5a. The OIG reported that USCIS's efforts to recover the
19,000 wrongfully-issued green cards have not been effective due to a
lack of consistency and urgency at USCIS. For example, when USCIS
issued the wrong or duplicate cards in the spring of 2016, USCIS did
not begin attempting to recall cards for months.
How has USCIS addressed the issues related to consistency and
urgency when recalling green cards that were issued in error?
Answer. Response was not received at the time of publication.
Question 5b. To date, how many of the green cards associated with
the episodes outlined in your report are still unaccounted for?
Answer. Response was not received at the time of publication.
Question 5c. Has USCIS investigated whether these wrongfully-issued
cards were used to commit fraud and/or facilitate criminal activity?
Answer. Response was not received at the time of publication.
Question 6. In August 2015, GAO explained how the current
electronic databases used for EB-5 ``have limitations that reduce their
usefulness for conducting fraud--mitigating activities. For example,
information that could be useful in identifying program participants
linked to potential fraud is not required to be entered in USCIS's
database . . . Moreover, FDNS officials told us that some data fields
are also not standardized, a fact that presents significant barriers to
conducting basic fraud-related searches.'' How will transitioning EB-5
processing to ELIS address these shortcomings? When does USCIS plan to
process EB-5 in ELIS?
Answer. Response was not received at the time of publication.
Question 7. While USCIS is planning to transition EB-5 processing
to ELIS, there are currently no plans to include supporting information
associated with the EB-5 applications, such as bank statements or
business plans. This is an interesting decision, given that according
to FDNS, ``this supporting information can be an important source of
potential fraud indicators.'' Please explain the decision to not
include supporting documentation in the ELIS migration. Are there any
plans to eventually move this information into ELIS and if so, when
does USCIS expect to do so?
Answer. Response was not received at the time of publication.
Question 8. In a 2015 GAO report, GAO recommended that FDNS
immigration officers prescreen all asylum applications for indicators
of fraud to the extent that it is cost-effective and feasible. What has
USCIS done to comply with this recommendation?
Answer. Response was not received at the time of publication.
Questions From Ranking Member Bennie G. Thompson for Lori Scialabba
Question 1. USCIS recently announced it will halt premium
processing of H-1B visa petitions on April 3, for up to 6 months.
Premium processing fees help USCIS cover the faster processing but the
fees also go towards other expenses, including refugee processing. What
will the economic impact be to USCIS, a primarily fee-funded component,
without fees collected from premium processing?
Answer. Response was not received at the time of publication.
Question 2. We understand that the revised fiscal year goal for
refugee admissions is 50,000. To date in the fiscal year, how many
refugees have been admitted into the United States? To what extent have
Refugee Affairs Division resources been redirected from the refugee
admission process to other USCIS mission needs in light of the
administration's Executive Orders? How is USCIS adjusting its refugee
adjudication workload for the remainder of the fiscal year?
Answer. Response was not received at the time of publication.
Question 3. What is the current status of the regulation issued by
former President Obama that expands the use of the Government's
``parole'' authority to authorize an immigration benefit for foreign
entrepreneurs who can demonstrate they will provide a significant
public benefit to the United States as a result of economic growth and/
or job creation, scheduled to go into effect July 16, 2017?
Answer. Response was not received at the time of publication.
Question 4. USCIS has stated that the reason for the H-1B premium
processing suspension is to help address the backlog of petitions and
decrease processing time overall. How will the loss of H-1B premium
processing fees affect USCIS's ability to dedicate more resources to
adjudicating backlogged petitions?
Are officers who currently adjudicate premium processed H-1B
petitions being reallocated to all H-1B petitions? Or are those
officers going to be working on the many other employment-based filings
that are also backlogged?
Answer. Response was not received at the time of publication.
Question 5a. In August 2016, USCIS discontinued use of ELIS and
reverted to using the legacy management system for all new N-400
applications. In January 2017, the Inspector General learned that USCIS
leadership planned to return to ELIS for application processing. What
is the current status of the ELIS system?
Is ELIS being used to process immigration applications? If so,
which application forms?
Question 5b. If ELIS is not in use, what is the current time line
to revert from the legacy system back to ELIS?
Answer. Response was not received at the time of publication.
Question 6a. This month, USCIS indicated it will suspend premium
processing of H-1B visas, a program that allows employers to bring
skilled foreign workers to the United States. How long does USCIS
intend to suspend premium processing?
The Transformation Program is partially funded by unobligated
carryover money from premium processing fees. What other USCIS programs
may be impacted by the elimination of premium processing fees from H-1B
visas?
Answer. Response was not received at the time of publication.
Question 6b. USCIS is primarily funded by fees. What are the long-
term implications USCIS may face without fees collected from H-1B visa
premium processing?
Answer. Response was not received at the time of publication.
Question 7a. Recent estimates provided by GAO indicate the
Transformation Program should be completed in March 2019 at a cost of
$3.1 billion dollars. Based on your most recent review of the program,
are these estimates still accurate?
If not, please provide the subcommittee with the updated life-cycle
cost and schedule.
Answer. Response was not received at the time of publication.
Question 7b. How has the recent errors with green card processing
impacted the anticipated life-cycle cost and schedule?
Answer. Response was not received at the time of publication.
Question 8. Both GAO and the IG have expressed concerns with the
overall management of the USCIS Transformation Program, particularly
citing USCIS failure to ``consistently follow the acquisition
management approach outlined in DHS management directives.'' How has
management of the Transformation Program been addressed by USCIS?
Please provide particular areas USCIS management corrected or
improved upon related to following leading IT management best
practices, policies, and programs.
Answer. Response was not received at the time of publication.
Question 9. In December 2015, GAO reported on significant
weaknesses in USCIS's oversight of the asylum process with particular
emphasis on gaps in the agency's efforts to prevent, detect, and
respond to asylum fraud. What is the status of USCIS's efforts to
develop an assessment tool and implementation plan for completing
regular fraud risk assessments of the affirmative asylum process?
Answer. Response was not received at the time of publication.
Question 10. Based on current administration priorities, what is
the status of applications for humanitarian parole, particularly those
applications for the Central American Minors (CAM) Program?
Answer. Response was not received at the time of publication.
Question 11. The USCIS Field Operations Associate Director
expressed directly to USCIS CIO Mark Schwartz his concerns with the
performance of ELIS and the need to meet four minimal requirements
before returning to processing naturalization benefits in ELIS. What is
the current status of meeting the four requirements discussed?
When it was decided in January 2017 to revert back to ELIS, had the
four minimal requirements provided by the Associate Director been met?
Answer. Response was not received at the time of publication.
Question 12. The H-1B visa program allows employers to bring
skilled foreign workers to the United States. Premium processing grants
those employers a response from USCIS within 15 days as opposed to the
traditional response, which takes 3-6 months. What impact do you
believe this longer processing period will have on employers and
workers, especially given the annual cap for H-1B visas is 65,000, yet
USCIS is expecting more than 200,000 petition requests?
Answer. Response was not received at the time of publication.
Question 13. USCIS personnel are required to check applicants'
biographic data against the CBP TECS system and the FBI's name check
database. However, ELIS allowed cases to be moved forward for
processing despite incomplete or inaccurate background and security
checks, which is incredibly concerning. According to Field Operations
Directorate officials, approximately 175 applicants were granted
citizenship as of January 11, 2017 before the problem was detected and
USCIS began redoing the name checks to ensure they were all completed
correctly. Why was the decision made to revert back to using the ELIS
system despite discovering this error?
What current oversight is being conducted to ensure applications
cannot be processed without the sufficient database and name checks?
Answer. Response was not received at the time of publication.
Question 14. Please explain USCIS's decision to change the
Transformation Program in 2012, including the switch from one primary
contractor to multiple contractors and the change from the waterfall
software development approach to the agile approach.
How do you anticipate these changes impacted the total overall
costs of the Program as well as the implementation time line?
Answer. Response was not received at the time of publication.
Question 15. As States continue expanding the reasons for which
they seek to use the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements
(SAVE) program for verification of immigration status, how is USCIS
ensuring each new use is proper and appropriate? Does USCIS have
concerns about the expanding uses of SAVE, including using SAVE to for
voter registration purposes?
Answer. Response was not received at the time of publication.
Questions From Chairman Scott Perry for Carol C. Harris
Question 1. What are some of the biggest concerns and risks with
USCIS being unable to readily share immigration information with
Federal partners?
Answer. We have not specifically examined the concerns and risks
with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) process for
sharing immigration information with Federal partners. However, we have
previously reported that challenges in USCIS's information systems and
processes can hinder its efforts to use data to identify and address
fraud risks in immigration benefit programs. For example, in August
2015, we reported that the agency's information systems and processes
limit its ability to collect and use data on the EB-5 Program to
identify fraud related to individual investors or investments or to
determine any fraud trends across the program.\1\ In particular, we
noted that USCIS relies heavily on paper-based documentation. While its
contractors and employees enter information from these paper documents
into various electronic databases, these databases have limitations
that reduce their usefulness for conducting fraud-mitigating
activities.
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\1\ GAO, Immigrant Investor Program: Additional Actions Needed to
Better Assess Fraud Risks and Report Economic Benefits, GAO-15-696
(Washington, DC: Aug. 12, 2015).
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Moreover, we found that USCIS did not collect applicant information
that could help mitigate fraud. In fiscal year 2011, the agency
expanded reporting requirements to gather information about on-going
regional center activities, such as information on the active projects
managed by each regional center. According to USCIS and U.S. Securities
and Exchange Commission officials, this information helped identify
potential incidents of fraud. However, USCIS has not required EB-5
program petitioners and applicants to provide information about the
businesses supported by the regional centers and program investments
coordinated by the regional centers, such as the names of principals or
key officers associated with the business, or information on advisers
to investors such as foreign brokers, marketers, attorneys, and other
advisers receiving fees from investors. U.S. Securities and Exchange
Commission and Fraud Detection and National Security Directorate
stakeholders with whom we spoke emphasized that collecting additional
information could be useful for the agency to combat fraud. For
example, according to these officials, the absence of information about
businesses supported by regional centers limits USCIS's ability to
identify potential fraud, such as misrepresentation of a new commercial
enterprise.
Given that information system improvements with the potential to
expand fraud mitigation efforts would not take effect until sometime in
the future, and that gaps existed in its other information collection
efforts, we recommended that USCIS develop a strategy to expand
information collection. In developing a strategy, we recommended that
USCIS consider including the increased use of interviews at the
I-829 phase as well as requiring the additional reporting of
information in applicant and petitioner forms. Doing so could better
position the agency to identify and mitigate potential fraud and
communicate and share that information with other partners. As of April
2017, USCIS staff reported taking multiple actions to address this
recommendation and we will continue to monitor their efforts to assess
the extent to which these actions meet the intent of our
recommendation.
Question 2. USCIS usually receives around 14,000 EB-5 petitions and
applications a year, the average length of which is approximately 1,000
pages. According to GAO, USCIS reviews these petitions manually, as the
EB-5 process relies on paper-based documentation. This is clearly
inefficient and makes adjudicating applicants more difficult and
burdensome. To what extent does USCIS's reliance on paper applications
undermine its ability to thoroughly vet and root out fraud when
adjudicating EB-5 petitions?
Answer. In September 2016, we reported that fraud mitigation in the
EB-5 Program was hindered by a reliance on voluminous paper files,
which limits the agency's ability to collect and analyze program
information.\2\ In our review of a non-generalizable selection of files
associated with EB-5 program regional centers and immigrant investors,
we found that identifying fraud indicators was extremely challenging.
For example, many of these files were several thousand pages long and
would take significant time to review. According to USCIS
documentation, the program anticipates receiving approximately 14
million pages of supporting documentation from its regional center
applicants and immigrant investor petitioners annually. Agency
officials noted that the state of information within the program
precluded certain fraud-detection and analysis efforts, such as the
development of an automated risk-weighting system to prioritize
petitions and applications at higher risk of fraud.
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\2\ Immigrant Investor Program: Progress Made to Detect and Prevent
Fraud, but Additional Actions Could Further Agency Efforts, GAO-16-828
(Washington, DC: Sept. 13, 2016).
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Question 3a. GAO reported that USCIS delayed efforts to move EB-5
applications to the ELIS system.
What potential fraud risks exist because EB-5 applications are
processed on paper rather than in an electronic system?
Answer. Fraud risks that USCIS identified in the program include
uncertainties in verifying that the funds invested were obtained
lawfully and the existence of various investment-related schemes to
defraud investors. In August 2015, we reported that USCIS was unable to
comprehensively identify and address fraud trends across the program
because of its reliance on paper-based documentation and because it
faces certain limitations with using available data and with collecting
additional data on EB-5 immigrant investors or investments.\3\ In
September 2016, we further reported that USCIS officials had noted that
the state of information within the program precluded certain fraud-
detection and analysis efforts, such as the development of an automated
risk-weighting system to prioritize petitions and applications at
higher risk of fraud.\4\
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\3\ GAO-15-696.
\4\ GAO-16-828.
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For example, we reported that information from the application form
that could be useful in identifying program participants linked to
potential fraud is not required to be entered into USCIS's database,
such as the applicant's name, address, and date of birth. Consequently,
program participants linked to potential fraud might not be identified.
We also reported that USCIS's rules guiding data entry leave many
form fields ``optional'' in USCIS data systems. According to USCIS
officials, the adjudication is completed from the paper application
forms, so the agency considers entering these data unnecessary.
However, information about entities such as regional center principals
and other participants is not consistently recorded. Consistently
including information, such as names and dates of birth, in its
databases could help the agency better identify specific individuals
who may be targeted for or are under investigation. Without such
information, USCIS might accept applications from individuals who might
be targeted or under investigation.
Further, more standardized information in USCIS databases, such as
information about the geographic locations of regional centers, could
help the agency better identify and assess any potential regional
center fraud trends.
Question 3b. Based off of GAO's work on the ELIS system, what is
your sense of USCIS's efforts to make EB-5 applications fully
electronic? What are the biggest challenges USCIS faces in completing
this effort?
Answer. USCIS has been delayed in its efforts to make EB-5
applications fully electronic. In August 2015, we reported that USCIS
officials had said the agency would be able to collect and maintain
more readily-available data on EB-5 Program petitioners and applicants
through the deployment of electronic forms in USCIS ELIS.\5\ USCIS
officials told us that they expected capabilities for the EB-5 Program
to become functional in 2017. However, USCIS has faced long-standing
challenges in implementing USCIS ELIS, a fact that raises questions
about the time frames for its eventual deployment and, thus, the extent
to which the system will position the agency to collect and maintain
more readily available data. For example, in our March 2017 testimony,
we noted that the Transformation Program did not complete deployment of
planned system functionality associated with its Citizenship line of
business.\6\ As part of its remediation efforts to address the delay,
USCIS planned to revise its acquisition documentation when re-
baselining the Transformation Program. As of March 2017, the effort to
re-baseline the Transformation Program was still on-going. Until the
program establishes a new, reliable baseline, the time frames and
expectations for making EB-5 applications fully electronic are
uncertain.
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\5\ GAO-15-696.
\6\ GAO, Immigration Benefits System: Significant Risks in USCIS's
Efforts to Develop its Adjudication and Case Management System, GAO-17-
486T (Washington, DC: Mar. 16, 2017).
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USCIS's challenges in governance and management of the
Transformation Program have impacted its ability to make EB-5
applications fully electronic. In 2015, we reported that DHS's
oversight of the Transformation Program was limited by a lack of
reliable information being reported to existing governance and
oversight entities.\7\ Further, in 2016, we reported on program
management challenges with the Transformation Program's adherence to
best practices in Agile software development, systems integration and
testing, and contract management.\8\ Until such challenges are fully
addressed, even after a re-baseline, the program may still encounter
further delays in the future, thereby impacting its ability to make EB-
5 applications fully electronic. Addressing our previous
recommendations to improve management and oversight of the program
should help to mitigate this risk of future schedule delays.\9\
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\7\ GAO, Immigration Benefits System: Better Informed Decision
Making Needed on Transformation Program, GAO-15-415 (Washington, DC:
May 18, 2015).
\8\ GAO, Immigration Benefits System: U.S. Citizenship and
Immigration Services Can Improve Program Management, GAO-16-467
(Washington, DC: Jul 7, 2016).
\9\ See GAO-15-415 for recommendations related to oversight and
GAO-16-467 for recommendations related to management of the
Transformation Program.
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Question 4. GAO reported in 2015 and 2016 that USCIS's
methodologies for calculating EB-5 outcomes and economic benefits were
invalid and unreliable. In response, USCIS said it was developing a
case management system to allow it to track and report EB-5 investor
data by fiscal year 2017.
To what extent will this case-management system sufficiently
address USCIS's current inability to track and report EB-5 data? If
implemented effectively, what benefits would such a system provide?
Answer. It is still too early to tell to what extent USCIS's new
case management system will allow the agency to track and report EB-5
data or what benefits it will provide. According to USCIS officials,
this system is designed to support EB-5 adjudications and the program's
data requirements. This system, if implemented as designed, could aid
some of USCIS's ability to track and report EB-5 data. However,
according to USCIS officials, a time line for completing the system has
not been finalized due to changes in the scope of the project.
Question 5. In August 2015, GAO explained how the current
electronic databases used for EB-5 ``have limitations that reduce their
usefulness for conducting fraud-mitigating activities. For example,
information that could be useful in identifying program participants
linked to potential fraud is not required to be entered in USCIS's
database . . . Moreover, FDNS officials told us that some data fields
are also not standardized, a fact that presents significant barriers to
conducting basic fraud-related searches.'' What additional measures can
USCIS implement in the interim to ensure the integrity of the EB-5
program?
Answer. To improve EB-5 program fraud prevention, detection, and
mitigation capabilities, USCIS should continue to take steps to fully
implement the recommendations made in our prior reports.\10\ These
include recommendations to:
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\10\ GAO-15-696, GAO-16-828.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
1. Plan and conduct regular future risk assessments of the EB-5
program.
2. Develop a strategy to expand information collection, including
considering the increased use of interviews at the I-829 phase,
as well as requiring the additional reporting of information in
applicant and petitioner forms.
3. Develop a fraud risk profile that aligns with leading practices
identified in GAO's Fraud Risk Framework.\11\ USCIS has
concurred with our recommendations and has told us that it is
taking steps to address them. We will continue to monitor its
efforts to do so.
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\11\ GAO, A Framework for Managing Fraud Risks in Federal Programs,
GAO-15-593SP (Washington, DC: July 2015).
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Question 6a. While USCIS is planning to transition EB-5 processing
to ELIS, there are currently no plans to include supporting information
associated with the EB-5 applications, such as bank statements or
business plans. This is an interesting decision, given that according
to FDNS, ``this supporting information can be an important source of
potential fraud indicators.''
Without including this important supporting documentation in the
migration to ELIS, how effective will the move to ELIS be in addressing
fraud risks within the EB-5 program?
Answer. Without this supporting documentation, USCIS may lack the
information it needs to conduct analysis to identify potential fraud
indicators in the program. In September 2016, we reported that USCIS
planned to collect and maintain more readily available data on EB-5
program petitioners and applicants through the deployment of electronic
forms in its new system, USCIS ELIS.\12\ However, agency officials told
us that they did not anticipate capturing supporting information
provided as evidence in the petitions and applications in USCIS ELIS in
the near term. According to a Fraud Detection and National Security
Directorate official, this supporting information can be an important
indicator of potential fraud as it contains details such as business
plans associated with the investment. To strengthen fraud risk
management, we recommended that USCIS develop a fraud risk profile that
aligns with leading practices identified in GAO's Fraud Risk
Framework.\13\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\12\ GAO-16-828.
\13\ GAO-15-593SP.
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Question 6b. Given that USCIS has no immediate plans to move the
supporting documentation to the ELIS system, what steps can USCIS take
to ensure the manual review of these documents are adequately
identifying fraud?
Answer. To help ensure that the manual review of supporting
documents adequately identifies fraud, USCIS should continue to take
steps to address our prior recommendations.\14\ If effectively
implemented, these recommendations should improve USCIS's ability to
identify and prioritize fraud risks while also detecting fraud in the
program. As previously noted, these include recommendations to:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\14\ GAO-15-696, GAO-16-828.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
1. Plan and conduct regular future risk assessments of the EB-5
program.
2. Develop a strategy to expand information collection, including
considering the increased use of interviews at the I-829 phase,
as well as requiring the additional reporting of information in
applicant and petitioner forms.
3. Develop a fraud risk profile that aligns with leading practices
identified in GAO's Fraud Risk Framework. USCIS has concurred
with our recommendations and has told us that it is taking
steps to address them. We will continue to monitor its efforts
to do so.
Question 7. To what extent does USCIS being fee-funded affect its
openness to oversight? How has USCIS used its unobligated carryover
balance to fund failing IT programs? What has been the cost to
applicants based on USCIS's mismanagement?
Answer. We have not previously evaluated how fee-funding affects
USCIS's openness to oversight or how USCIS has used its unobligated
carryover balance to fund failing IT programs. Likewise, we have not
reported on the cost to applicants based on USCIS's mismanagement.
However, we previously reported in 2015 that delays in deploying the
Transformation Program have contributed to missed cost savings and a
deferral of operational efficiencies and other benefits.\15\ Deferring
operational efficiencies directly impacts applicants. For example, the
Transformation Program is expected to implement organizational and
business process changes to better use IT. According to USCIS, this
increased use of IT should help achieve goals such as reducing the
immigration benefit backlog through business process change; improving
customer services through expanded electronic filing; and enhancing
National security by authenticating users and integrating with external
agency databases. Due to delays in the program, these improvements have
yet to be achieved. Moreover, in December 2016, we reported on entities
such as USCIS, where Congress has granted authority to collect and
obligate funds, including fees, outside of the annual appropriations
process and we examined how those entities facilitate oversight.\16\
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\15\ GAO-15-415.
\16\ Permanent Funding Authorities: Some Selected Entities Should
Review Financial Management, Oversight, and Transparency Policies, GAO-
17-59 (Washington, DC: Dec. 9, 2016).
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Questions From Ranking Member Bennie G. Thompson for Carol C. Harris
Question 1. Ms. Harris, in the past USCIS has used carryover
funding to support the Transformation Program. In fact, USCIS has
estimated that the unobligated carryover balance for the premium-
processing fee could grow to $1.1 billion by fiscal year 2020, and the
fee collections are expected to cover the Transformation initiative.
Given the suspension of premium H-1B processing, what impact will this
have on the Transformation Program? Is it possible the Program will
experience additional delays?
Answer. We have not assessed the H-1B contribution to total premium
processing revenue. As a result, we do not know the impact that the
suspension of premium H-1B processing will have on the Transformation
Program, including additional delays. In July 2016, we reported that
USCIS had collected approximately $467 million in premium processing
revenue.\17\ USCIS estimated that the unobligated carryover balance for
the premium processing fee could continue to grow to $1.1 billion by
fiscal year 2020, as fee collections are expected to exceed
Transformation Program funding requirements. USCIS reported in fiscal
year 2015 that it had begun to reduce the growing balance by expanding
the use of the premium fee collections to fund one-time infrastructure
improvements that support adjudication services other than for the
Transformation Program, such as its Financial Systems Modernization
project. According to its spending plan from that same year, USCIS
estimated that expanding the use of premium processing fee collections
would result in an unobligated carryover balance for premium processing
of about $341 million by the end of fiscal year 2020.
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\17\ GAO, DHS Management: Enhanced Oversight Could Better Ensure
Programs Receiving Fees and Other Collections Use Funds Efficiently,
GAO-16-443 (Washington, DC: July 21, 2016).
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Question 2. The USCIS Transformation Program is currently rated as
a ``Medium Risk'' program on the Federal IT Dashboard. Do you believe
this is the appropriate risk level given the concerns discussed today
and the on-going effort to re-baseline the program?
Answer. Given the current concerns, we do not view a rating of
``medium-risk'' as being appropriate for the USCIS Transformation
Program. Rather, the program should be rated as ``high-risk'' on the
Federal IT Dashboard. In June 2016, we assessed 95 investments across
the Federal Government, including the Transformation Program, and
reported that many of them had underreported their risk level.\18\ More
specifically, we reported that our assessments matched the Federal IT
Dashboard ratings 22 times, showed more risk 60 times, and showed less
risk 13 times. We noted that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)
had reported the program as ``medium-risk,'' but that our evaluation of
the program showed that it should be classified as ``high-risk.'' In
response, we recommended that DHS ensure that their ratings reflect the
level of risk facing an investment relative to that investment's
ability to accomplish its goals. As of April 2017, this recommendation
is still open and the Transformation Program is still identified as a
medium-risk program on the Federal IT Dashboard.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\18\ GAO, IT Dashboard: Agencies Need to Fully Consider Risks When
Rating Their Major Investments, GAO-16-494 (Washington, DC: June 2,
2016).
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Question 3. Ms. Harris, in January 2017, President Trump instituted
an immediate hiring freeze that affected a large portion of the
Executive branch. The hiring freeze left room for a National security
exemption but Secretary Kelly has stated that the exemption will not
apply to DHS as a whole. What impact does a hiring freeze have on the
progress of IT program modernization efforts, such as Transformation?
In its 2017 High-Risk Update, GAO asserts that DHS needs to make
additional progress in allocating resources in certain areas, such as
staffing for acquisition and information technology positions. Would
you agree that a hiring freeze could undoubtedly hinder this needed
progress?
Answer. We have not examined the effects of the 2017 Federal Hiring
Freeze Executive Order on IT program modernization efforts or DHS's
ability to assess and address whether appropriate numbers of trained
acquisition personnel are in place at the Department and component
levels. Likewise, we have not determined whether a hiring freeze will
hinder the progress of DHS to allocate resources in certain areas.
However, we have previously reported on the effects of Government-
wide hiring freezes, and found they are not an effective means of
controlling Federal employment. In March 1982, we pointed out that,
because Government-wide hiring freezes did not account for individual
agencies' missions, workload, and staffing requirements, they disrupted
agency operations and, in some cases, increased costs to the
Government.\19\ Specifically, we found that because such hiring freezes
disregarded agency workload requirements and did not cover all
personnel resources used by the Government, they created an incentive
for managers to use alternative sources of labor.
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\19\ GAO, Recent Government-Wide Hiring Freezes Prove Ineffective
in Managing Federal Employment, FPCD-82-21 (Washington DC:, March 10,
1982).
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Any potential savings produced by these freezes would be partially
or completely offset by increasing overtime, contracting with private
firms, or using other than full-time permanent employees. We concluded
that improved workforce planning and use of the budget as a control on
employment, rather than arbitrary across-the-board hiring freezes, is a
more effective way to ensure that the level of personnel resources is
consistent with program requirements.
Question 4a. Ms. Harris, last month GAO released its High-Risk
Update. In testimony before this subcommittee, your colleague at GAO
indicated that DHS has fully addressed 3 key outcomes and mostly
addressed another 3 outcomes in information technology management.
While this is great improvement, programs such as the Transformation
Program are still failing to meet important implementation targets.
Please rationalize DHS's improvement in IT Management with the
shortcomings of the Transformation Program.
Answer. DHS has taken steps to establish basic IT management
fundamentals, consistent with this high-risk area; nevertheless, it is
still experiencing shortcomings with specific programs, as is the case
with the Transformation Program. Over the past decade, as part of the
DHS high-risk area, we have been tracking the Department's progress in
improving its IT management functions. A key reason we included IT
management as part of this high-risk area was because the Department
lacked the basic fundamentals for IT management. The Department, among
other things, had a weak enterprise architecture program (blueprint)
and lacked critical practices for effective IT investment management.
As we reported in February 2017, and as noted in your question, DHS
had fully addressed three of the six IT management outcomes and had
mostly addressed the remaining three. For example, in 2013, we reported
that DHS had strengthened its enterprise architecture program to guide
IT acquisitions and, thus, had fully addressed the related outcome
area.\20\ Specifically, an independent assessment of the Department's
enterprise architecture program showed that DHS had achieved stage four
of our Enterprise Architecture Framework \21\ (that is, completing and
using an enterprise architecture for targeted results). In 2015, we
reported that DHS had completed and implemented a tiered governance and
portfolio management structure for overseeing and managing its IT
investments, and annually reviewed each of its portfolios and the
associated investments to determine the most efficient allocation of
resources within each of the portfolios.\22\ As such, we determined
that the related outcome had been fully addressed.
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\20\ GAO, High-Risk Series: An Update, GAO-13-283 (Washington, DC:
Feb. 14, 2013).
\21\ GAO, Organizational Transformation: A Framework for Assessing
and Improving Enterprise Architecture Management (Version 2.0)
(Supersedes GAO-03-584G), GAO-10-846G (Washington, DC: Aug. 5, 2010).
\22\ GAO, High-Risk Series: An Update, GAO-15-290 (Washington, DC:
Feb 11, 2015).
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In addition, more recently, we reported that the DHS Chief
Information Officer (CIO) had taken steps to improve the oversight and
management of troubled investments.\23\ For example, the Office of the
CIO conducts a Techstat review on troubled programs.\24\ The Office of
the CIO has also created centers of excellence to help troubled
programs, such as its IT Program/Project Manager Center of Excellence,
which is a cross-functional team created to provide guidance and
assistance in the management of IT programs and projects. As a result,
we have found multiple previously-troubled investments improving their
performance, such as U.S. Customs and Border Protection's Automated
Commercial Environment and the Office of the CIO's Homeland Security
Information Network.
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\23\ GAO, High-Risk Series: Progress on Many High-Risk Areas, While
Substantial Efforts Needed on Others, GAO-17-317 (Washington, DC: Feb.
15, 2017).
\24\ A Techstat review is a face-to-face, evidence-based review of
IT programs with DHS headquarters, component leadership, and the Office
of Management and Budget, as appropriate.
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While DHS has taken these steps to establish basic IT management
fundamentals, consistent with this high-risk area, there is still room
for improvement. DHS is still experiencing problems with specific
programs, as is the case with the USCIS Transformation and Human
Resources IT Programs, but likely less frequently than it has in the
past. We are continuing to work with the Department to ensure that our
related recommendations to these troubled programs are implemented, and
will continue to monitor DHS's progress in fully implementing the
remaining high-risk IT outcomes.
Question 4b. Based on your research, do you believe visibility on
the program and its failures should be elevated higher, either to the
USM or Secretary?
Answer. The DHS under secretary for management currently has
visibility into the Transformation Program, but we have not assessed
whether elevating visibility to the Secretary would benefit the
program. DHS's oversight of the Transformation Program is currently
limited by a lack of reliable information being reported to existing
governance and oversight entities. According to DHS's acquisition
management process, the deputy secretary and under secretary for
management serve as the acquisition decision authorities for the
Department's largest acquisition programs, including for the
Transformation Program. The Under Secretary for Management also serves
as DHS's Chief Acquisition Officer and, in this role, is responsible
for managing and overseeing the Department's acquisition policies and
procedures. The Department's acquisition policy requires that the DHS
Acquisition Review Board support the Under Secretary for Management by
reviewing major acquisition programs for proper management, oversight,
accountability, and alignment with the Department's strategic functions
at key decision points and other meetings, as needed. In addition, in
May 2012, the Under Secretary for Management chartered the Executive
Steering Committee for the Transformation Program to help improve
program governance. In contrast to the Acquisition Review Board, this
committee assumed authority to oversee all aspects of the execution of
the Transformation Program between key decision points.
However, we reported in 2015 that governance bodies overseeing the
Transformation Program and supporting the Under Secretary for
Management were basing decisions on unreliable information. For
example, in February 2014, the Acquisition Decision Authority approved
a bridge contract for the solutions architect to, among other things,
assist in developing a new architecture. However, operational
requirements along with an integrated master schedule and cost
estimates had not been approved to support this decision. To improve
Transformation Program governance and oversight, we made four
recommendations for the Secretary of DHS to direct to components within
DHS. As of April 2017, based on the program's April 2015 re-baseline,
the program had fully implemented our recommendation to re-baseline
cost, schedule, and performance expectations for the remainder of the
Transformation Program. Since closure of that recommendation, the
program has exceeded its new schedule baseline and is again updating
acquisition documentation. As of April 2017, DHS has not fully
implemented the remaining three recommendations. Implementing these
three outstanding recommendations should improve Transformation Program
governance and oversight.
Question 4c. What must DHS as a whole, and USCIS in particular, do
to get this program on track?
Answer. To help get the Transformation program on the right track,
DHS should focus on addressing recommendations from our April 2015
report.\25\ As previously discussed in earlier responses, we found that
DHS's oversight of the Transformation Program was limited by a lack of
reliable information being reported to existing governance and
oversight entities. DHS has taken some steps to address our
recommendations, such as approving a program re-baseline in April 2015.
However, the Department still needs to take additional steps such as
ensuring that two key governance bodies are effectively monitoring
program performance and progress.
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\25\ [Sic.]
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In addition to the efforts of the Department, USCIS should address
all the recommendations from our July 2016 report.\26\ We reported that
the program faced challenges with adherence to best practices in Agile
software development, systems integration and testing, and contract
management. USCIS has taken some steps towards implementing our
recommendations, such as conducting internal audits to improve
management of Transformation Program contracts. However, USCIS, with
assistance from the Department, still needs to ensure that the
Transformation Program executes Agile software development for USCIS
ELIS consistent with its own policies and guidance and follows
applicable leading practices. The program should also conduct unit and
integration tests, functional acceptance tests, and code inspection
consistent with stated program goals.
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\26\ [Sic.]
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Fully implementing our recommendations will help to ensure that
these investments receive necessary oversight and attention, and will
help address the ineffective management that the Transformation Program
has experienced to date.
Question 5a. Ms. Harris, USCIS has made efforts to correct ELIS's
technical deficiencies while concurrently developing system
functionality for the program. This simultaneous activity has caused
down times, instability, and interruption in processing. Based on your
expertise in information technology programs, what are the effects of
continuing to use a flawed system while trying to correct errors and
failures at the same time?
Answer. We have not specifically reported on the effect of
continuing to use a flawed system while trying to correct errors and
failures at the same time. However, there is risk associated with
correcting errors while a system is in operation. This risk can be
reduced if appropriate program management controls and oversight are in
place. Nevertheless, as discussed in our responses, we have previously
identified a number of concerns with both program management controls
and Transformation Program oversight. We have made multiple
recommendations to resolve these issues, some specifically targeting
controls over systems integration and testing. If these recommendations
are effectively implemented, USCIS will be better-positioned to rapidly
address on-going and future technical defects found in deployed
software, as well as to decrease the number of defects contained in
future software releases.
Question 5b. Given these effects, should USCIS continue using ELIS
in its current state?
Answer. Our work has not evaluated whether USCIS should continue
using ELIS in its current state. However, senior governance bodies need
accurate and reliable information in order to manage USCIS ELIS
consistent with DHS's acquisition management process. DHS's Deputy
Secretary and Under Secretary for Management serve as the acquisition
decision authorities for the Department's largest acquisition programs
and are empowered to make critical decisions, such as whether to
continue or suspend program operations. To assist in overseeing
programs, these decision authorities rely on supporting governance
bodies such as the Acquisition Review Board and Executive Steering
Committee.
However, in 2015, we reported that governance bodies were making
key programmatic decisions based on unreliable information. We reported
that, until these governance bodies based their reviews of performance
on timely, complete, and accurate data, they would be limited in their
ability to make timely decisions and to provide effective oversight.
This includes decisions such as whether to continue using USCIS ELIS in
its current state. We made four recommendations to help improve
Transformation Program governance and oversight.
As of April 2017, based on the program's April 2015 re-baseline,
the program had fully implemented our recommendation to re-baseline
cost, schedule, and performance expectations for the remainder of the
Transformation Program. However, since we closed that recommendation
based on the program's April 2015 re-baseline, it has exceeded its new
schedule baseline and is again updating its acquisition documentation.
As of April 2017, DHS has not fully implemented the remaining three
recommendations, which are primarily focused on ensuring that decision
makers have reliable information to inform their key programmatic
decisions. Implementing these three outstanding recommendations will
help improve Transformation Program governance and oversight and help
inform key decisions, such as decisions about whether to continue using
USCIS ELIS in its current state.
Question 5c. What functions of ELIS should be corrected before
USCIS attempts to use the program again?
Answer. Our work has not examined the specific functions of USCIS
ELIS that require correction and, therefore, we cannot determine which
of its functions should be corrected before USCIS attempts to use the
program again. However, as discussed in my response to the prior
question, it is critical for governance bodies to have accurate and
complete information in order to effectively oversee the program.
Having accurate and complete information would help ensure that
decision makers are appropriately informed when making critical
decisions, such as decisions regarding which functions of ELIS should
be corrected before USCIS attempts to use the program again.
Question 6a. Ms. Harris, the GAO High-Risk Update released last
month asserts, ``DHS needs to take additional actions to improve its
performance monitoring data and strengthen management of the
Transformation Program.'' Otherwise, additional delays, functionality
problems, and production issues are highly likely. Please describe how
the Transformation Program has fallen short on executing program
management best practices.
Answer. In 2016, we reported on issues in the management of
Transformation Program Agile software development, systems integration
and testing, and contract management.\27\ We found that the program's
software development approach deviated from key practices in part
because USCIS policy and guidance were not being updated; the program
was deploying software that had not been fully tested; and the program
had mixed success in monitoring its contractors for the six contracts
that we reviewed.
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\27\ GAO-16-467.
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Question 6b. What areas should the Department focus on to get the
program on track in the most cost-effective and efficient manner,
particularly as it relates to management?
Answer. To help get the program on track in the most cost-effective
and efficient manner, particularly as it relates to management, we
recommend that USCIS promptly address our remaining outstanding
recommendations associated with Agile software development and systems
integration and testing. We made 12 recommendations to address the
concerns we identified. As of April 2017, the program has fully
addressed 3 of those 12 recommendations. If DHS and USCIS continue to
move ahead without more fully addressing the issues we've identified,
it continues to be at risk of spending significant time and money
without being able to effectively realize the benefits that the system
is intended to achieve.
Question 7. Ms. Harris, agile software development calls for
delivering software in small, short increments rather than in the
typically long, sequential phases used in a traditional waterfall
approach. Please explain the advantages and/or disadvantages to using
the agile v. waterfall approach. Was it beneficial for the Department
to change course after having already invested several million dollars
in the Transformation Program?
Answer. We have previously reported on some of the advantages in
using an Agile, rather than waterfall approach to software
development.\28\ In particular, we have reported that Agile software
development is consistent with industry best practices and existing
incremental development requirements. Our work has shown that, if
performed effectively, this approach can provide more flexibility in
responding to changing agency priorities, and allow for easier
incorporation of emerging technologies and termination of poorly
performing investments with fewer sunk costs.
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\28\ GAO, Information Technology: Agencies Need to Establish and
Implement Incremental Development Policies, GAO-14-361 (Washington, DC:
May 1, 2014).
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In 2012, we reported on differences between waterfall and Agile
methods and the successes and challenges particular to Agile.\29\ The
Agile approach differs in several ways from traditional waterfall
software development, which produces a full software product at the end
of a sequence of phases. For example, the two approaches differ in: (1)
The timing and scope of software development and delivery, (2) the
timing and scope of project planning, (3) project status evaluation,
and (4) collaboration. However, we did not discuss the advantages and
disadvantages of the two approaches.
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\29\ GAO, Software Development: Effective Practices and Federal
Challenges in Applying Agile Methods, GAO-12-681 (Washington, DC: July
27, 2012).
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We have not evaluated if it was beneficial for the Department to
change course after having already invested several million dollars in
the Transformation Program. However, in 2015, we reported that changes
to the Transformation Program acquisition strategy, including a
transition to Agile, had contributed to schedule delays.\30\ For
example, the development and test environments stood up to support
Agile development took longer than expected due to the complexity of
the environments. Moreover, a bid protest of the flexible Agile
development services contract required the program to adjust the
schedule and extend the solution architecture contract, as well as the
contract for another team to continue work until the protest was
resolved. The schedule delays hampered the ability to realize cost
savings and deferred operational efficiencies. For example, in fiscal
year 2014, the total cost of maintaining systems that could have been
decommissioned if ELIS had been fully operational was approximately $71
million. Such costs continue to be incurred with delays in the program.
Nevertheless, the program had also experienced issues when initially
pursuing a more traditional approach to software development. For
example, as part of the root-cause analysis to inform a Techstat
review, the USCIS CIO noted that delays and cost overruns were partly
the result of the solution architect delivering deficient software code
and performing at an unacceptably low rate of productivity.
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\30\ GAO-15-415.
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In addition, in 2016, we reported that the Transformation Program
had not established outcomes for Agile software development.\31\ In our
prior work on effective Agile software development practices, we found
that a key practice for the successful adoption of Agile software
development is to identify measurable outcomes, not outputs, of what
the program wants to achieve using the approach.\32\ An example of this
practice is creating a vision for project outcomes (such as a decrease
in processing time by a specific percent in a set time), rather than
outputs (such as the amount of code produced). However, the
Transformation Program had not defined or set goals for the transition
to Agile software development. Without a sense for the goals and
expected outcomes for Agile software development, the program would not
be able to monitor progress. We recommended that the Department
establish outcomes for Agile software development. However, as of April
2017, USCIS has not yet demonstrated that it has established such
outcomes.
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\31\ GAO-16-467.
\32\ GAO-12-681.
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Question 8. Ms. Harris, as you know, technical debt is a concept in
programing where code that is easy to implement in the short run is
used instead of applying a best overall solution in the long run.
Overall, a company or agency should spend 10-20% of time fixing errors
associated with programs and lowing technical debt costs. However, it
appears that USCIS continues to use the ELIS system without addressing
long-term issues with the program. Based on your review of the
Transformation Program, has USCIS accumulated technical debt? If so, is
USCIS addressing the technical debt?
Answer. We have not previously assessed technical debt either
generally or as part of our review of the Transformation Program.
However, in 2016 we reported on concerns with the overall performance
of USCIS ELIS.\33\ Specifically, we found that issues in systems
integration and testing increased program risk of poor system
performance after release to the public. We noted that the risk was of
particular concern due to system performance issues that were already
realized. To address deficiencies in systems integration and testing,
we recommended that USCIS review and update existing policies and
guidance and consider additional controls for unit, integration, and
functional acceptance testing, and code inspection consistent with
stated program goals. We also recommended developing complete test
plans and cases for interoperability and end-user testing, as defined
in the program's test and evaluation master plan, and document the
results.
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\33\ GAO-16-467.
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In following up on the agency's actions to address our open
recommendations, we have obtained information from USCIS that describes
some steps it is taking to manage technical debt. In an updated breach
remediation plan for the Transformation Program, USCIS cited technical
team capacity for remediating technical debt as one of the root causes
for its recent schedule breach. To address the matter, USCIS reported
in its breach remediation plan that it planned to halt all new work and
focus on improving the product lines that were already built. According
to the plan, the agency anticipated this action would allow the program
to focus temporarily on remediating technical debt. USCIS also intended
to begin initiatives to increase ELIS availability and performance, as
well as the quality and consistency of its testing processes. The
agency anticipated that this additional action would also address
technical debt.
Question 9. The DHS Inspector General has written about many
troublesome operational issues associated with the Electronic
Immigration System (ELIS). For example, in his January 2017 Management
Alert, he identified a range of ELIS technical and functional issues
that have slowed processing and productivity. These included missing
core ELIS functionality, naturalization cases stuck in ELIS workflows,
and ELIS's failure to connect with supporting systems. What have you
found in your work at GAO that might help us understand why the program
is experiencing these kinds of issues?
Answer. The technical and operational issues reported by the DHS
Inspector General are consistent with the kinds of issues that we would
expect to see given our findings related to ELIS software development
and integration and testing. For example, with respect to software
development, in July 2016 we reported that metrics intended to
demonstrate if the scope of each software release was consistent with
plans were not fully traceable back to intended functionality, which
increased the risk of gaps between intended functionality and
functionality actually developed for ELIS.
In addition, with respect to testing and integration, in July 2016,
we reported on issues such as lack of adequate code coverage, lack of
evidence that system integration testing was occurring regularly, and
that the program had not developed plans or test cases showing that
live interface testing had occurred consistent with its Test and
Evaluation Master Plan.\34\ The program provided some results for live
interface testing, so some testing was occurring, but it was not
occurring consistent with the program's test plans and we were not able
to make a determination on the extent to which this less formal testing
occurred.
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\34\ U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, USCIS Test and
Evaluation Master Plan: Electronic Immigration System, version 1.0.
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We also reported in July 2016 that, until the program fully
addressed the key practices for systems integration and testing by
ensuring the consistent implementation of policy, procedures, and
guidance that aligns with leading practices, it risks poor system
performance after it has been released to the public. This risk was of
particular concern due to system performance issues that had already
been realized. Specifically, the program reported experiencing issues
with USCIS ELIS as a result of deploying software that had not been
fully tested. For example, on September 24, 2015, USCIS ELIS
encountered issues that impacted nearly 5,000 cases. Approximately
2,600 of these cases had to be abandoned. In February 2016, the program
reported missing the threshold for USCIS ELIS reliability (e.g. mean
time between failure), for 2 straight months and 4 of the last 6
months. In March 2016, program metrics indicated that production
tickets had increased faster than they could be addressed.
Questions From Chairman Scott Perry for John Roth
Question 1. What are some of the biggest concerns and risks with
USCIS being unable to readily share immigration information with
Federal partners?
Answer. Providing electronic capabilities for immigration benefits
processing is critical to enable timely and accurate sharing of
immigration data with DHS partners once immigration benefits, such as
citizenship, have been granted. Within DHS, several components such as
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border
Protection (CPB) use USCIS's applicant information to grant admission
into the United States, or track visa overstays. However, until USCIS
can achieve electronic processing for all immigration benefit types,
these components must conduct additional research involving cross-
checks with other USCIS systems to confirm immigration status. These
delays may result in individuals being wrongfully refused entry into
the United States, or incorrectly classified as visa overstays.
Question 2. To what extent does USCIS being fee-funded affect its
openness to oversight? How has USCIS used its unobligated carryover
balance to fund failing IT programs? What has been the cost to
applicants based on USCIS's mismanagement?
Answer. To the extent that USCIS is fee-funded, USCIS's programs
may be less scrutinized compared to Federally-funded programs or
investments, as oversight entities may have less insight into, and
taxpayers may have less immediate concern regarding, how program
dollars are spent. Nevertheless, USCIS's mismanagement has had a
negative impact on members of the public. For instance, approved
applicants have been delayed in receiving benefits to which they are
entitled, and may even pay multiple fees for a single benefit (due to
slow processing and/or benefit documents being mailed to incorrect
addresses).
I cannot comment on USCIS's use of its unobligated carryover
balance to fund failing IT programs as our office has not done work on
that particular issue.
Questions From Ranking Member Bennie G. Thompson for John Roth
Question 1. Mr. Roth, since 2005, the DHS Inspector General Office
has issued five audit reports on multiple USCIS IT modernization
attempts that were hampered by repeated delays and scope reductions.
During your time as Inspector General, what patterns have you observed
that may help explain why the program is still experiencing issues?
What improvements, particularly as it relates to management, do you
feel would assist in the program's performance?
Answer. We have reported over the past 11 years that USCIS has
struggled to transform its paper-based processes into an integrated and
automated immigration benefits processing environment. Long-standing
program management deficiencies have been central to USCIS's continued
lack of progress. Historically, its automation attempts have been
hampered by ineffective planning, multiple changes in direction, and
inconsistent stakeholder involvement. Current program efforts are no
different, as the agency continues to encounter automation challenges,
additional delays, and the need to repeatedly reduce the scope of
Transformation. Because the program has been primarily schedule-driven,
deployments of each product line have not been properly managed to
ensure adequate testing is completed prior to each release. Poor
program management practices have also included a lack of stakeholder
communication and involvement, as necessary field personnel or end-
users are not included in decisions that have significant impact on
field operations. Likewise, failure to provide sufficient technical
support has been a long-standing pattern, as each product line has been
implemented without a plan for providing proactive technical support to
end-users.
We recommend that USCIS improve stakeholder involvement, implement
adequate performance metrics, fully test each system release, and
provide technical support to help ensure the effectiveness of its
efforts to automate immigration benefits processing. These four
recommendations, issued in our March 9, 2016 report (OIG-16-48),\1\
remain open at this time.
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\1\ USCIS Automation of Immigration Benefits Processing Remains
Ineffective, OIG-16-68 (March 2016).
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Question 2a. Mr. Roth, according to your March 2016 report ELIS has
also had a negative impact on customer service at multiple U.S. ports
of entry, where customers were detained for up to a day while waiting
for verification of their permanent residence status. This problem
increased as more customers filed electronic ``Applications to Replace
Permanent Resident Cards'' in ELIS because CBP Officers at U.S. ports
of entry lacked direct access to ELIS to validate ELIS receipt numbers.
To the best of your knowledge, has USCIS addressed the delayed waits at
ports of entry due to ELIS errors?
In addition, has CBP been granted proper access and training for
the ELIS system?
Question 2b. What policies should USCIS consider implementing to
ensure this sort of error does not continue in the future?
Answer. USCIS's applicant information is needed to complete
inspections and to determine traveler admissibility prior to allowing
entry into the United States. If CBP Officers at U.S. ports of entry
are unable to verify information, such as receipt numbers in ELIS,
there is a high likelihood that passengers will be refused entry into
the country. At this time, any passenger with an ELIS receipt number
will experience increased entry delays due to the additional research
needed to cross-check other systems, or call DHS personnel with ELIS
access to get information. Every delay also increases the wait time for
each passenger in Passport Control Secondary screening.
To the best of my knowledge, CBP has not been granted any access to
ELIS or received any training on the ELIS system. We recommend USCIS
review and update applicable policies and operating procedures to
ensure CBP Officers at U.S. ports of entry have read-only access to
ELIS. This will help ensure that customers are not delayed or detained
unnecessarily.
Question 3a. Mr. Roth, in your January 2017 management alert, you
recommend that USCIS halt plans to revert back to the ELIS processing
system and instead continue using the legacy ``Computer Linked
Application Information Management System.'' Do you have any concerns
with USCIS continuing to use the legacy system to process immigration
applications instead of the ELIS system, particularly as it relates to
applicant vetting?
Is the legacy system capable of fulfilling USCIS's application and
processing needs?
Question 3b. If USCIS completes the recommended improvements in
your management alert, do you have any concerns with ELIS as it relates
to applicant vetting?
Answer. My office has not received any indication that immigrant
vetting through the legacy system has failed to provide accurate
security checks. We have received anecdotal evidence that, with
upgrades, the legacy system could fulfill USCIS's existing application
workload and processing needs. However, it is unknown whether legacy
systems can fully support or adapt to changes in legislation related to
immigrant eligibility that may increase workloads. It is also unknown
how legacy systems could be updated to provide more sophisticated
account-based and electronic filing functionality, which are needed to
improve operational efficiency and immigration benefits delivery.
At this point we have not received evidence that ELIS can
consistently or accurately vet applicants. Numerous failures have
occurred at critical stages in the background check process, both prior
to adjudication and after adjudication. The failures include problems
with ELIS connectivity and coding. For instance, during the
preprocessing stage, the ELIS system sent background check requests to
CBP's TECS system. However, the system connection was failing and
erroneously sending false positive results back to USCIS when the
checks were not actually run. Also, FBI name checks failed to run
correctly for all applicants due to a coding error that caused certain
letters of an individual's name to be dropped. Similar problems
occurred following application adjudication, when final background
checks failed due to technical errors just prior to Naturalization
ceremonies.
The USCIS Chief Information Officer is currently working to address
the root causes for each of these failures. We have been assured that
these fixes will result in a reliable and fully functioning automated
applicant vetting process. Once these fixes are implemented, we will
closely monitor the progress and effectiveness of the improvements.
Question 4a. Mr. Roth, has USCIS responded to your management alert
advising against using the ELIS system until certain minimal
requirements are met? If so, have the minimal requirements outlined in
your report been completed, according to USCIS?
You have outlined a range of concerns with the ELIS system,
including green card issuance errors, inadequate system training, and
inconsistent agency response efforts. What do you believe is the
primary reason behind the shortcomings of the Transformation Program?
Question 4b. What impact, if any, did changes in strategy in 2012
have on the implementation of the Transformation Program?
Question 4c. Do you believe the Transformation Program should
institute any additional changes, either in strategy, acquisition
planning, and/or other areas?
Answer. Yes, we received a response from USCIS on January 27, 2017,
concurring with our recommendations. USCIS is currently working to
address all of the issues listed in our Management Alert. To date, we
have not received evidence that the minimal improvements have been made
to satisfy the intent of our recommendations.
Even if USCIS addresses the specific recommendations made in the
Management Alert, those recommendations relate solely to processing
naturalization applications (Form N-400) in ELIS. As your question
notes, and as our prior work demonstrates, there are a host of issues
plaguing the ELIS system across the full range of benefit types. We
have reported over the past 11 years that USCIS has struggled to
transform its paper-based processes into an integrated and automated
immigration benefits processing environment. Historically, these
automation attempts have been hampered by ineffective planning,
multiple changes in direction, and inconsistent stakeholder
involvement. Current program efforts are no different, as USCIS
continues to encounter automation challenges, additional delays, and
the need to repeatedly reduce the scope of Transformation.
The lack of Transformation Program and the system performance
problems can be attributed to the same deficiencies we previously
reported regarding poor program management. Specifically, USCIS has not
ensured sufficient stakeholder involvement in system implementation
activities and decisions for meeting operational needs; system testing
has not been adequate to ensure end-to-end functionality prior to each
ELIS release; and USCIS has not provided adequate post-implementation
technical support for system end-users.
Additionally, we found that the changes in 2012 had no effect on
USCIS's ability to successfully transition to electronic processing via
ELIS. One prevalent issue prior to 2012--the complexity of the ELIS
architecture--continues to be the most critical impediment to progress.
Specifically, complex interfaces and interdependencies in the
architecture resulted in repeated system outages and slow processing
speed. The changes relating to the system acquisition strategy and
development methodology have also had no impact on the long-standing
program management challenges we have reported over the last 11 years,
including a systemic lack of stakeholder involvement, a lack of
technical support, inadequate testing, and inability to measure the
operational impact of electronic processing as it is implemented.
Until USCIS addresses its long-standing program management
deficiencies, progress will be hampered. Addressing our previous
recommendations to improve stakeholder involvement, implement
performance metrics, fully test each system release, and provide
technical support to help end-users is critical for USCIS to progress
in its efforts to automate immigration benefits processing.
Question 5. Mr. Roth, you have suggested a range of areas that ELIS
must improve upon, including better contingency planning to ensure
continuity of operations during outages, improved case management to
ensure that the ELIS system contains all necessary and up-to-date
records, and enhanced efforts to address issues caused by ELIS. These
improvements will undoubtedly take additional time and training of the
workforce. What are the possible implications that a hiring freeze may
have on the improvement of ELIS?
DHS officials met with subcommittee staff last week and
acknowledged that certain hires needed for the Transformation Program
would not fall under the National security exemption of the hiring
freeze. Please explain to the committee how inadequate staffing impacts
IT modernization efforts, such as the Transformation Program,
particularly as it relates to cost, schedule, and performance.
Answer. We have never identified inadequate staffing as a root
cause for Transformation challenges or delays. Due to the nature of its
fee-funded structure, the program previously reported it had the
ability to expand as needed through additional FTEs, USCIS employee
details, or contract staff.
Question 6. Recruiting new Federal employees and ensuring that
existing personnel receive the right training and have the right tools
to make use of new technologies needs to be at the forefront of the IT
workforce efforts. How will progress with the Transformation Program,
particularly as it relates to the workforce, be impacted by
administration priorities and initiatives, such as the hiring freeze
and elimination of H-1B visa premium processing?
Given the additional checks that must be completed manually due to
system errors, additional training needed for the complex system, and
additional testing of the system, does USCIS have the available
resources to get the Transformation Program on track?
Answer. Again, we have never identified inadequate staffing as a
root cause for Transformation challenges or delays. However, ELIS
implementations over the past year have resulted in significant burdens
on agency field and service center personnel. The time and effort
associated with performing additional manual checks due to failed or
inaccurate background checks and other system errors were not required
prior to ELIS deployment. The agency also has faced increasing burdens
from green cards issued in error or mis-delivered since the
implementation of ELIS. Because of such ELIS-related inefficiencies,
additional demands are now levied on USCIS personnel outside their
normal duties, which are counter to the transformation objective of
achieving a more efficient and effective electronic processing
environment. These inefficiencies have also resulted in additional
unanticipated costs to the agency and delays in immigration benefits
delivery. Additional staff resources may help to alleviate these
burdens, but only in the short term, and they do not address root
causes of the problems.
Question 7. Mr. Roth, in your March 2016 report on the
Transformation Program, USCIS only concurred with two of the four
recommendations, not agreeing to ensure adequate communications and
stakeholder involvement throughout system developing and not agreeing
to develop and implement a plan to provide adequate support for
addressing system issues. What do you believe the impacts will be to
the Transformation Program given USCIS decision to not follow these
recommendations?
Answer. Despite initially non-concurring, the acting director of
USCIS issued a revised response on October 18, 2016 concurring with
those two recommendations. However, USCIS has not yet provided evidence
to demonstrate improvements in stakeholder communications and
involvement, or in providing adequate support to address system issues.
At this time, all four report recommendations remain open, but resolved
pending corrective actions. Until USCIS addresses these long-standing
issues, it will be unable to ensure a successful transition to
electronic processing.
Question 8. Mr. Roth, given the nature and importance of the
Transformation Program investment, based on your investigations, what
effect do you believe this investment's non-performance will have on
the capabilities and mission of the Department of Homeland Security as
a whole?
Is the Transformation Program a wise investment given only 2 of
approximately 90 types of immigration benefits and services are
available for on-line customer filing?
Answer. The issues with ELIS identified in our work have far-
reaching implications. Of greatest concern is the risk to National
security. Until USCIS can ensure ELIS is performing complete and
accurate background security checks prior to approving applicants for
U.S. Citizenship, improperly-vetted immigrants may be granted
admissibility into the United States. Additionally, until USCIS
remedies the issues that resulted in the delivery of green cards to the
wrong address, there is a risk that green cards may fall into the wrong
hands. Separate from National security concerns, until USCIS can share
relevant and timely data with its stakeholders such as CBP, any
passenger with an ELIS receipt number will experience increased delays
while border agents cross check other systems and conduct the
additional research needed to confirm U.S. Citizenship status. Further,
until USCIS fully implements ELIS, the agency will not be in a position
to effectively and efficiently manage existing workloads, or adapt to
changes in legislation related to immigrant admissibility that may
increase workloads.
The Transformation Program has not yet been able to successfully
transition USCIS from paper to electronic processing. The core premise
of the ELIS system was to deliver an efficient, account-based system to
process and manage all 90 applications and services. To date, the
Transformation Program has ingested four immigration benefit types and
one service into ELIS for electronic processing;\2\ however, the I-90
Application to Replace a Permanent Resident Card is the only benefit
application that can be submitted by a customer on-line. We have
consistently reported over the past 11 years that the Transformation
Program has not been able to achieve any of its three primary goals,
which were to improve customer service, increase operational efficiency
of immigration benefits processing, and ensure National security and
system integrity. On the contrary, our findings to date have concluded
that ELIS has negatively impacted each of these three areas and created
notable National security risk.
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\2\ USCIS Immigrant Fee payment, Form I-90 Application to Replace a
Permanent Resident Card, Temporary Protected Status, Deferred Action
for Childhood Arrivals, Form N-400 Application for Naturalization.
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Question 9. The USCIS Transformation Program is currently rated as
a ``Medium-Risk'' program on the Federal IT Dashboard. Do you believe
this is the appropriate risk level given the concerns discussed today
and the on-going effort to re-baseline the program?
Answer. We disagree with the USCIS Transformation Program's current
Chief Information Officer (CIO) rating of ``Medium-Risk'' on the
Federal IT Dashboard. Over the past year or more, the program has
experienced numerous delays, performance issues, and a substantial lack
of internal controls. Specifically, our reports identified alarming
security concerns regarding errors in processing and issuing green
cards to applicants. We also disclosed inadequate security checks that
led to applicants being granted citizenship without complete or
accurate background checks. Because of the problems encountered, USCIS
decided in August 2016 to revert to legacy processing and discontinue
using ELIS to process new naturalization applications.
Of additional concern, DHS has not followed its own Program Health
Assessment (PHA) process for the USCIS Transformation Program in terms
of the frequency of CIO ratings. Specifically, the program should have
been rated or assessed every quarter (3 months) based on its ``Medium-
Risk'' ratings. The last three CIO ratings were August 31, 2016,
January 29, 2016, and July 31, 2015; which reflect approximately 7- and
6-month gaps between the CIO ratings, respectively. DHS's failure to
execute its own PHA process raises additional concerns as to the
accuracy and timeliness of the CIO ratings themselves.
Related to this, a June 2016 Government Accountability Office (GAO)
report criticized the level of risk reflected in the Department's CIO
ratings. Specifically, GAO performed independent risk assessments on
seven of the Departments' major IT investments, including the USCIS
Transformation Program. GAO reported that the April 2015 CIO rating of
the program on the IT Dashboard did not reflect the level of risk
facing the investments. GAO concluded the program should have reflected
more risk and been rated ``High-Risk'' on the IT Dashboard for that
month. GAO recommended that the CIO ensure the Department's CIO ratings
reflect the level of risk facing an investment relative to the
investment's ability to accomplish its goals. In its written comments,
DHS concurred with this recommendation; however, as of April 6, 2017,
the status of this recommendation was still open. Until these issues
are addressed, we believe the accuracy of the Department's CIO ratings
on the Federal IT Dashboard should be scrutinized.