| In 2002, the United States Congress created the office of Ombudsman within the Department of Homeland Security. Appointed in mid-2003, the Ombudsman recently released his first annual report, which details the nature of his function within government and sets forth his first-year accomplishments.
The Function of the Ombudsman
When Congress passed the Homeland Security Act of 2002, it consolidated 22 federal agencies into a single federal department, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). This change was designed to provide a unified approach to national security and immigration. The Secretary of the Department, soon thereafter, identified improving customer service for immigrants as a key priority of DHS.
Within the Department, the focus of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) is to deliver effective citizenship and immigration services. The Ombudsman was placed as an official outside of USCIS, reporting directly to the Secretary of DHS. The Ombudsman is tasked with improving the processes of the immigration system. Specifically, his role is to identify problems within the system and to make recommendations about how to resolve them. In accomplishing this task, he identifies areas of systemic and individual problems, helps individuals and employers resolve those problems, and proposes changes to the immigration system to avoid those problems in the future.
First-Year Milestones
During his first year, the Ombudsman focused on identifying changes that could be made to current immigration processes rather than the pursuing the enactment of new or different laws. His first annual report discussed four major accomplishments during his first year in office. First, he examined the current immigration system to identify problems involving national security, customer service, and process workflows. In doing this, he was able to identify five significant issues for improvement: prolonged processing times, immigration benefit fraud, limited access to case status information, insufficient standardization in processing, and inadequate physical facilities and information technology. Additional issues targeted for future attention include internal immigration appeals, travel document delays, excludability waivers, temporary and healthcare worker visas, adjustments of status, naturalizations, employment authorizations, and affidavits of support.
The second major accomplishment was the provision of assistance to customers, including individual applicants for immigration benefits and employers. The Ombudsman established a procedure with USCIS pursuant to which inquiries forwarded by the Ombudsman would be resolved by USCIS within 30 days. Additionally, the requests for assistance the Ombudsman received were used to create a database to analyze trends and problems in immigration processing.
Third, the Ombudsman focused on collaborating with key stakeholders in immigration services. In accomplishing this task, the Ombudsman visited many immigration facilities, meeting with management and staff to build rapport and to identify key issues. Finally, the Ombudsman worked closely with the Secretary and Deputy Secretary of DHS, as well as other top-level federal government officials, to further his collaborative efforts.
Finally, the Ombudsman began to work on human capital and infrastructure issues within his office. Specifically, he hired the majority of his staff, began to create a training and operational plan, and created an information collection and processing system. Copyright 2010 LexisNexis, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. |