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U.S. Immigration Application Backlog Decreasing, Official Says

Eduardo Aguirre, director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services in the Department of Homeland Security (DoS Photo)

By M. Charlene Porter
Washington File Staff Writer

Washington -- U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (CIS) has made significant progress in reforming an "old, embattled" bureaucracy and is making solid inroads in reducing a longstanding backlog in immigration applications, according to CIS Director Eduardo Aguirre.

Formed from the remnants of the long-beleaguered Immigration and Naturalization Service and folded into the Department of Homeland Security, CIS has been in business since March 2003. Speaking in Washington September 21, Aguirre said the agency has been able to halve the case backlog, which he likened to "Mount Everest, a seemingly awesome task."

With the introduction of more efficient and streamlined processes, however, the backlog has been reduced from 4 million to 2 million cases over the last eight months, he said. Striving for a complete resolution of backlogged cases, Aguirre said the agency goal is to resolve all immigration applications in six months.

Aguirre describes his reform of the agency as "a simple but imperative mission -- making certain the right applicant receives the right benefit in the right amount of time and preventing the wrong applicant from accessing America's immigration benefits."

The CIS director noted two further reforms that he hopes will provide faster, more efficient access to immigration services. The E-filings program gives customers online access to eight forms that comprise 50 percent of the types of applications the agency handles. The Infopass program allows customers to go online to book an appointment with immigration officials, offering what Aguirre called "open arms, not endless lines."

Even though improving customer service has been an important priority during Aguirre's tenure as CIS director, he emphasized the agency's ongoing role in national security, working to prevent the admission of anyone who intends to do harm to the United States or its citizens.

"We will not cut a single corner to process an application more quickly if it means compromising security," Aguirre told his audience of business people and diplomats.

Aguirre has been addressing the immediate problems involved with establishing a new agency in a new cabinet department and dealing with the regulatory changes imposed following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Aguirre also is taking a long view of immigration management, and suggested that the U.S. Congress needs to make a wholesale reassessment of the legal regimen that governs immigration.

He said the basis of today's law was written in another era, and raised the question of whether that law still applies to today's global travel. "We think nothing of getting on a airplane and landing in Vancouver, Canada, moving on to Hong Kong or Mexico City. This [law] was written in a day when voyages took days, if not weeks."

In reforming CIS, Aguirre said he has applied more than 30 years' experience in banking to bring sound business practice, good customer service and improved risk management into the federal bureaucracy he now oversees. In addition to his business experience, however, Aguirre brings significant personal experience to CIS. He is an immigrant from Cuba who came to the United States without his parents at age 15.

Aguirre said he has vowed to improve service at CIS to ensure that every individual is treated with dignity and respect, in contrast to his own experience winding his way through the immigration bureaucracy as a boy.