GAO Releases Analysis of USCIS Fee Increases - and the news is not pretty
The GAO Analysis on USCIS fee increases part 1 and part 2. http://Immigration-law.com reported today:
This Government Accounting Office release relfects that about the USCIS was run on the fees collected from the customers in 2008. Do you remember the whoppy fee increase in August 2007, immediately following the FY 2007 Visa Bulleting fiasco? How were these fee increased justified? Here is what the GAO study is saying: USCIS allocated $732 million of overhead costs (or 31 percent of total costs)–including information technology operations and maintenance–to offices based on the number of staff full-time equivalents (FTE) in each office. However, USCIS’s documentation did not sufficiently justify (1) why cost allocation was used instead of other possible methods or (2) why it did not include about 6,100 contract workers and used only approximately 7,900 FTEs of the total federal FTEs of about 10,400 as the basis for allocation. USCIS also did not adequately justify the equal assignment of activity costs representing 51 percent of total costs to each application type.
It’s good to know that the GAO is keeping tabs on USCIS spending. And it’s sad to know that USCIS is not doing as well as it should, using taxpayer money. Iam not against fee increases and collecting higher fees from immigrants - but the question is, where is it all going? Generic goals such as “Improve information technology operations”, Etc. are not sufficient. Last year, USCIS made the promise that by end of 2008-2009 fiscal year, which is September 3, 2009, the I-140 processing time will be 4 months or less. That’s the kind of goals that we want the money to get used up for. We are watching - and here’s my prediction - they will not get there by September. It’s January, and the lag is 15 months at NSC, so unless they make significant strides starting right now, that’s a very difficult goal. What about visa numbers? Is any of this money going against better allocation and reasonable wait times for employment and family-based green card applicants?
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