USCIS Paperless world - someday

[happyimmigrant 0]

Think immigration is a hot topic? Try automating all those paper files that the Department of Homeland Security's U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services unit has to track. In total the USCIS has to rely on about 55 million paper-based files to adjudicate applications for immigration status.

Automating all those files is no small matter, says the Government Accountability Office. In a report released May 1, the GAO outlined the challenges the USCIS is going to face automating its alien files, also known as A-Files. In a project called the Integrated Digitization Document Management Program, the USCIS plans to spend $190 million over eight years to electronically scan files and store and share them.

Although it's too early to truly gauge the USCIS' planning efforts, the GAO said the USCIS hasn't yet determined the "scope, content and approach for moving from paper-based to paperless A-Files."

Bottom line: The effort to go digital with all those immigration papers may fall short because effective planning isn't happening. The GAO said the USCIS doesn't know which A-Files forms it will scan and hasn't figured out a plan to manage or evaluate its digitization rpoject, even though it has already awarded $20 million for a pilot project.

Edited June 8, 2006 by gsmaclean