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26–906 PDF 2017

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 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/ 


Congress.#13
(II) 

COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY 

MICHAEL T. MCCAUL, Texas, Chairman 

LAMAR SMITH, Texas 

PETER T. KING, New York 

MIKE ROGERS, Alabama 

JEFF DUNCAN, South Carolina 

TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania 

LOU BARLETTA, Pennsylvania 

SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania 

JOHN KATKO, New York 

WILL HURD, Texas 

MARTHA MCSALLY, Arizona 

JOHN RATCLIFFE, Texas 

DANIEL M. DONOVAN, JR., New York 

MIKE GALLAGHER, Wisconsin 

CLAY HIGGINS, Louisiana 

JOHN H. RUTHERFORD, Florida 

THOMAS A. GARRETT, JR., Virginia 

BRIAN K. FITZPATRICK, Pennsylvania 

BENNIE G. THOMPSON, Mississippi 

SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas 

JAMES R. LANGEVIN, Rhode Island 

CEDRIC L. RICHMOND, Louisiana 

WILLIAM R. KEATING, Massachusetts 

DONALD M. PAYNE, JR., New Jersey 

FILEMON VELA, Texas 

BONNIE WATSON COLEMAN, New Jersey 

KATHLEEN M. RICE, New York 

J. LUIS CORREA, California 

VAL BUTLER DEMINGS, Florida 

NANETTE DIAZ BARRAGA ́ N, California 

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 

TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania 

JOHN RATCLIFFE, Texas 

CLAY HIGGINS, Louisiana 

MICHAEL T. MCCAUL, Texas (ex officio) 

J. LUIS CORREA, California 

KATHLEEN M. RICE, New York 

NANETTE DIAZ BARRAGA ́ N, California 

BENNIE G. THOMPSON, Mississippi (ex officio) 

RYAN CONSAUL, Subcommittee Staff Director 

ERICA D. WOODS, Interim Subcommittee Minority Staff Director 

(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

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 Barraga ́n, 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 

(1) 

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 Barraga ́n. 

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 

2 

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 

3 

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. 

4 

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 NaVerDate Mar 15 2010 15:56 Oct 20, 2017 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00008 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 H:\115TH CONGRESS\17OM0316\17OM0316.TXT HEATH
5 

tion’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. 

6 

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. 

7 

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. 

8 

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. 

9 

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 

10 

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 

11 

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. 

12 

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. 

13 

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. 

14 

• 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, 

15 

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. 

16 

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). 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). 

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. 

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

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. 

17 

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. 

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. 

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 

Account 

Management.

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 

Knowledge.

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. 

1Source: GAO analysis of USCIS documentation. GAO–17–486T 

18 

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. 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. § 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). 

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

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. 

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 deVerDate Mar 15 2010 15:56 Oct 20, 2017 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00022 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 H:\115TH CONGRESS\17OM0316\17OM0316.TXT HEATH
19 

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. 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. 14 GAO–15–415. 

ployed 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. 

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. 

However, despite exceeding its approved baseline and operating without a DHSapproved 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. 

TABLE 2.—KEY CHANGES TO THE TRANSFORMATION PROGRAM’S 

ACQUISITION APPROACH 

Key change Previous approach New approach 

Contracting approach ....... One contractor that 

served as the sole solution architect and system integrator.

Multiple contractors to 

provide various services, 

with USCIS serving as 

the system integrator. 

Software development approach.Waterfall development, an 

approach that uses long, 

sequential phases, resulting in product delivery years after program 

initiation.

Agile software development, an approach that 

delivers software in 

small, short increments, 

resulting in software released in phases. 

Program architecture ....... Included a large number 

of proprietary commercial off-the-shelf software products, which 

are ready-made and 

available for sale.

Includes open-source software, which is publicly 

available for use, study, 

reuse, modification, enhancement, and redistribution by 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-anda-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 conVerDate Mar 15 2010 15:56 Oct 20, 2017 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00023 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 H:\115TH CONGRESS\17OM0316\17OM0316.TXT HEATH
20 

15 GAO–15–415. 16 GAO–15–415. 17 GAO–16–467. 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. 

tinued to operate in breach status, without a DHS-approved revised acquisition 

strategy and baseline. In 2015, we reported15 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. 

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

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. 

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

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 

21 

19 See appendix I for related GAO products. 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. 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. 

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. 

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. 

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 

22 

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. 

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 initiating development and ensuring software meets business expectations prior to 

deployment .............................................................................................. P 

Adhering to the principles of the framework adopted for implementing 

Agile software development ................................................................... P 

Defining and consistently executing appropriate roles and responsibilities for individuals responsible for development activities ................ P 

Identifying users of the system and involving them in release planning activities .......................................................................................... P 

Writing user stories that identify user roles, include estimates of complexity, take no longer than one sprint to complete, and describe 

business value ......................................................................................... P 

Prioritizing user stories to maximize the value of each development 

cycle .......................................................................................................... Y 

Setting outcomes for Agile software development ................................... N 

Monitoring and reporting on program performance through the collection of reliable metrics ............................................................................ P 

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. 

23 

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). 

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. 

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 integration and testing of code .......................................................................... Y 

Performing continuous testing through the use of unit and integration 

tests, functional acceptance tests, and code inspection ....................... P 

Developing complete test plans and cases for interoperability and enduser testing and documenting those results ......................................... P 

1Source: 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: 

24 

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). 

• 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 

• 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. 

25 

30 GAO–15–415. 

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. 

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 Work- ers, 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). 

26 

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 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.

GAO–07–1013R Closed 

2. Increase coordination between program 

office and the Office of Human Capital to 

ensure transformation and human capital change initiatives are aligned.

GAO–07–1013R Closed 

3. Plan for the number and types of human 

resources required in the program office 

to carry the transformation through 2012.

GAO–07–1013R Closed 

4. Plan for obtaining and developing the IT 

human capital necessary to support the 

transformation.

GAO–07–1013R Closed 

5. Determine the critical skills 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.

GAO–07–1013R Closed 

6. Address continuity in key transformation 

leadership positions and address impacts 

to time frames when key personnel leave.

GAO–07–1013R Closed 

7. Use performance expectations and competencies to hold USCIS executives and 

employees accountable for achieving the 

goals of the transformation.

GAO–07–1013R Closed 

8. Continue to develop an enterprise architecture that sufficiently guides and constrains the transformation plans, as DHS 

works to address limitations in its own 

enterprise architecture and alignment 

processes.

GAO–07–1013R Closed 

9. Complete a comprehensive 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.

GAO–07–1013R Closed 

10. Complete a comprehensive communication strategy that addresses plans for 

formally engaging internal and external 

stakeholders throughout the transformation, and tailors information to 

meet these stakeholders’ specific needs.

GAO–07–1013R Closed 

27 

TABLE 5.—SATISFACTION OF KEY INTEGRATION AND TESTING 

PRACTICES—Continued 

Recommendation Report Status 

11. Complete a comprehensive communication strategy that addresses plans for a 

long-term, detailed strategy to share information with employees and stakeholders over the course of the transformation.

GAO–07–1013R Closed 

12. Document specific 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.

GAO–07–1013R Closed 

13. Develop and maintain an Integrated 

Master Schedule consistent with these 

same best practices for the Transformation Program.

GAO–12–66 ........ Closed 

14. Ensure that the life-cycle cost estimate 

is informed by milestones and associated 

tasks from reliable schedules that are 

developed in accordance with the nine 

best practices we identified.

GAO–12–66 ........ Closed 

15. Re-baseline cost, schedule, and performance expectations for the remainder of 

the Transformation Program.

GAO–15–415 ...... Closed 

16. Ensure that the Acquisition 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.

GAO–15–415 ...... Open 

17. Ensure that the Executive 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.

GAO–15–415 ...... Open 

18. Direct the Department’s 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.

GAO–15–415 ...... Open 

19. Complete planning for software releases 

prior to initiating development and ensure software meets business expectations prior to deployment.

GAO–16–467 ...... Open 

20. Consistently implement the principles of 

the framework adopted for Agile software development.

GAO–16–467 ...... Open 

21. Define and consistently execute appropriate roles and responsibilities for individuals responsible for development activities consistent with its selected development framework.GAO–16–467 ...... Open 

28 

TABLE 5.—SATISFACTION OF KEY INTEGRATION AND TESTING 

PRACTICES—Continued 

Recommendation Report Status 

22. Identify all system users and involve 

them in release planning activities.

GAO–16–467 ...... Open 

23. Write user stories that identify user 

roles, include estimates of complexity, 

take no longer than one sprint to complete, and describe business value.

GAO–16–467 ...... Open 

24. Establish outcomes for Agile software 

development.

GAO–16–467 ...... Open 

25. Monitor program performance and report to appropriate entities through the 

collection of reliable metrics.

GAO–16–467 ...... Open 

26. Conduct unit and integration, and functional acceptance tests, and code inspection consistent with stated program 

goals.

GAO–16–467 ...... Open 

27. Develop complete test plans and cases 

for interoperability and end-user testing, as defined in the USCIS Transformation Program Test and Evaluation 

Master Plan, and document the results.

GAO–16–467 ...... Open 

28. Clearly define measures against which 

to analyze differences between services 

expected and those delivered.

GAO–16–467 ...... Closed 

29. Ensure contracting officer representatives are maintaining complete contract 

files.

GAO–16–467 ...... Open 

30. Ensure quality assurance surveillance 

plans are developed when appropriate.

GAO–16–467 ...... Closed 

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 dolVerDate Mar 15 2010 15:56 Oct 20, 2017 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00032 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 H:\115TH CONGRESS\17OM0316\17OM0316.TXT HEATH
29 

lars 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 realworld 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 elecVerDate Mar 15 2010 15:56 Oct 20, 2017 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00033 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 H:\115TH CONGRESS\17OM0316\17OM0316.TXT HEATH
30 

1 USCIS Automation of Immigration Benefits Processing Remains Ineffective, OIG–16–48 

(March 2016). 

tronic 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 endto-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: 

• 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: 

31 

2 U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Information Technology Management Progress 

and Challenges, OIG–14–112 (July 2014). 

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. 

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 

32 

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). 

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. 

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 nondelivery 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. 

33 

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). 

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. 

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 

34 

6 Potentially Ineligible Individuals Have Been Granted Citizenship Because of Incomplete Fingerprint Records, OIG–16–130 (September 2016). 7 Improvements Needed for the SAVE to Accurately Determine Immigration Status of Individuals Ordered Deported, OIG–13–11 (December 2012). 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). 

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. 

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. 

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

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. 

35 

9 DHS’s Pilots for Social Media Screening Need Increased Rigor to Ensure Scalability and 

Long-term Success (Redacted), OIG 17–40 (February 2017). 9 H–2 Petition Fee Structure is Inequitable and Contributes to Processing Errors, OIG–17–42 

(March 2017). 

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

• 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

• 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. 

36 

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. 

37 

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? 

38 

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 

39 

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 

40 

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. 

41 

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? 

42 

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? 

43 

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 highrisk 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. 

44 

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—— 

45 

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. 

Barraga ́n. 

Ms. BARRAGA ́ N. 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 welloff. 

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. BARRAGA ́ N. 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? 

46 

Ms. SCIALABBA. Yes. 

Ms. BARRAGA ́ N. 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. BARRAGA ́ N

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. BARRAGA ́ N. 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 highlyskilled immigrants? 

47 

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. BARRAGA ́ N. 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. BARRAGA ́ N. 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 

48 

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 

49 

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 

50 

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 reVerDate Mar 15 2010 15:56 Oct 20, 2017 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00054 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 H:\115TH CONGRESS\17OM0316\17OM0316.TXT HEATH
51 

peat 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. 

52 

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. 

53 

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 

54 

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.] 

(55) 

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 evenVerDate Mar 15 2010 15:56 Oct 20, 2017 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00059 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6621 H:\115TH CONGRESS\17OM0316\17OM0316.TXT HEATH
56 

tually 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 feefunded 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 

57 

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 

58 

1GAO, Immigrant Investor Program: Additional Actions Needed to Better Assess Fraud Risks 

and Report Economic Benefits, GAO–15–696 (Washington, DC: Aug. 12, 2015). 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). 

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 paperbased 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. 

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. 

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 

59 

3GAO–15–696. 

4GAO–16–828. 

5GAO–15–696. 

6GAO, 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). 7GAO, Immigration Benefits System: Better Informed Decision Making Needed on Transformation Program, GAO–15–415 (Washington, DC: May 18, 2015). 8GAO, Immigration Benefits System: U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Can Improve 

Program Management, GAO–16–467 (Washington, DC: Jul 7, 2016). 9See GAO–15–415 for recommendations related to oversight and GAO–16–467 for recommendations related to management of the Transformation Program. 

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

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. 

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

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 reVerDate Mar 15 2010 15:56 Oct 20, 2017 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00063 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6621 H:\115TH CONGRESS\17OM0316\17OM0316.TXT HEATH
60 

10GAO–15–696, GAO–16–828. 11GAO, A Framework for Managing Fraud Risks in Federal Programs, GAO–15–593SP 

(Washington, DC: July 2015). 12GAO–16–828. 13GAO–15–593SP. 14GAO–15–696, GAO–16–828. 

sponse, 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 fraudmitigating 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: 

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. 

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

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: 

1. Plan and conduct regular future risk assessments of the EB–5 program. 

61 

15GAO–15–415. 16Permanent Funding Authorities: Some Selected Entities Should Review Financial Management, Oversight, and Transparency Policies, GAO–17–59 (Washington, DC: Dec. 9, 2016). 17GAO, DHS Management: Enhanced Oversight Could Better Ensure Programs Receiving Fees 

and Other Collections Use Funds Efficiently, GAO–16–443 (Washington, DC: July 21, 2016). 

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

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. 

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 

62 

18GAO, IT Dashboard: Agencies Need to Fully Consider Risks When Rating Their Major Investments, GAO–16–494 (Washington, DC: June 2, 2016). 19GAO, Recent Government-Wide Hiring Freezes Prove Ineffective in Managing Federal Employment, FPCD–82–21 (Washington DC:, March 10, 1982). 20GAO, High-Risk Series: An Update, GAO–13–283 (Washington, DC: Feb. 14, 2013). 

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. 

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. 

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-theboard 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 

63 

21GAO, 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). 22GAO, High-Risk Series: An Update, GAO–15–290 (Washington, DC: Feb 11, 2015). 23GAO, 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. 

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. 

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. 

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 

64 

25 [Sic.] 26 [Sic.] 

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. 

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. 

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 

65 

27GAO–16–467. 28GAO, Information Technology: Agencies Need to Establish and Implement Incremental Development Policies, GAO–14–361 (Washington, DC: May 1, 2014). 29GAO, Software Development: Effective Practices and Federal Challenges in Applying Agile 

Methods, GAO–12–681 (Washington, DC: July 27, 2012). 

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. 

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. 

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 timVerDate Mar 15 2010 15:56 Oct 20, 2017 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00069 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6621 H:\115TH CONGRESS\17OM0316\17OM0316.TXT HEATH
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30GAO–15–415. 31GAO–16–467. 32GAO–12–681. 33GAO–16–467. 

ing 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. 

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. 

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. 

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. 

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 tempoVerDate Mar 15 2010 15:56 Oct 20, 2017 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00070 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6621 H:\115TH CONGRESS\17OM0316\17OM0316.TXT HEATH
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34 U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, USCIS Test and Evaluation Master Plan: Electronic Immigration System, version 1.0. 

rarily 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. 

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 appliVerDate Mar 15 2010 15:56 Oct 20, 2017 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00071 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6621 H:\115TH CONGRESS\17OM0316\17OM0316.TXT HEATH
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1 USCIS Automation of Immigration Benefits Processing Remains Ineffective, OIG–16–68 

(March 2016). 

cants 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. 

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 

69 

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. 

70 

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, 

71 

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. 

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. 

Question 9. The USCIS Transformation Program is currently rated as a ‘‘MediumRisk’’ 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 

72 

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. 

Æ