Director Mayorkas has said that the USCIS is taking further steps to cut spending by $160 million from its $2.5 BILLION dollar budget (less than 1%). There is no doubt that USCIS is hamstrung by Congress, which gives USCIS virtually no funding. And, federal law is clear that USCIS does have to recoup some costs from users of its services. These mandatory recoverable costs include:

• Direct and indirect personnel costs, including salaries and fringe benefits such as medical insurance and retirement;

• Physical overhead, consulting, and other indirect costs, including material and supply costs, utilities, insurance, travel, and rents or imputed rents on land,buildings, and equipment;

• Management and supervisory costs; and

• The costs of enforcement, collection, research, establishment of standards, and regulation.

What is disturbing to me is that there is nothing in the announcement about reducing the over-hiring from previous two years  (staff cuts) or even reducing salaries.  Frankly, that is the first place EVERY business in America starts.  Heck, even the Department of Transportation had to furlough 2,000 people from its employee roles in March because of a budget fight with Senator Bunning.    Why is there such a reluctance to cut positions or salaries?.  It is quite clear that the USCIS is overstaffed.  Otherwise how do you explain the extraordinary number of unnecessary and redundant Requests for Evidence from the Service Centers that appear to be nothing more than “make work” for examiners? Nor is there anything in the USCIS fee increase proposal about trimming other areas of its budget, including the virtually useless “call centers,” employees benefits, or any other expense.

The real issue here is not necessarily the outrageousness of yet another fee increase, but really the source of funding for USCIS.   More than 95% of USCIS’s funding comes from user fees.  I know of no other federal agency which gets this much of their funding directly from its users. In that respect, USCIS is in many ways like a private business.  If Congress is mandating that USCIS be funded from is users like a private business, then USCIS needs to operate like a private business and be run as such. That would start with cutting not just “expenses” but overhead, which includes much of the over-hiring that was done in the previous administration.

Further, let’s look at what we are NOT getting in this fee increase–quality control, employee accountability, and performance metrics.  We don’t know how USCIS measures its employees or its programs, and we do not know what criteria they use, particularly for “rogue” examiners who issue unnecessary and overbroad RFEs and denials. We are also getting no RATIONAL explanation for the HUGE fee increase for premium processing, other than the USCIS needs the extra money to modernize its systems!

Now, this is a proposed rule.  So I strongly urge every person who reads this to submit formal comments on the proposed rule through www.regulations.gov.  The comment period runs for 45 days, beginning June 11, 2010 and ending July 26, 2010.   Additional detail on the methodology and data USCIS used to develop these fees will be available at www.regulations.gov on June 11, 2010.  I would encourage us to voice our strong opposition to these fee increase until USCIS justifies this increase with better performance, and real budget cuts, not a superficial less than 1%!

http://blog.uscis.gov/

Besides covering important issues like advanced parole, immigration is now publishing stories about adoptions and recognizing our veterans under their “wounded warriors” program. It is nice to see that immigration is away of the thoughts and questions that are on people’s mind.

For those of you that don’t know, an American woman, Tori Hansen, adopted a little boy in Russia. He had been removed from his alcoholic biological mother’s care a few years ago and put in an institution. He came to the United States, resided in the home of Ms. Hansen as her adopted son for several months and then last week, she put him on a plane back to Russia with a note pinned inside his jacket that read “I no longer wish to parent this child.” Apparently the child had emotional difficulties, was violent and difficult to control. That Hansen wasn’t aware of his potential problems prior to the adoption is hard to believe. A quick internet search of “Russia” and “older children” and “adoption” yields a host of potential challenges, including attachment disorders, behavioral problems and psychological issues. What is she trying to say? They don’t have google in Tennessee?

The problem is that you can’t put your adopted child back on a plane and send them off to a foreign country just like you can’t put your biological child on a plane and send him off the a foreign country with a note pinned to his jacket stating that you no longer wish to parent. This little boy was the subject of a full and final adoption decree in Russia. That means that as soon as he entered the United States, he became a US citizen. He has the same rights and privileges as any other American child. And his “mom” has the same obligations as if she had given birth to him. Nobody’s suggesting that she struggle along for years with a child that she cannot handle but there were resources available to her. She could have sought counseling for herself and the little boy, taken a parenting class, gotten to the bottom of his issues, or placed him for adoption with another family. The only things she couldn’t do was drive him out of town and drop him off on the side of the road or put him on a plane back to Russia or otherwise dispose of him.

There’s a lot of talk about criminal charges- abandonment, neglect etc. I’m surprised that nobody has mentioned the fact that the Russian authorities could also come after her for child support until this little boy reaches 18 (or 21 if he goes to college.) I’ve also heard that the Russian authorities are considering halting all adoptions by American citizens. I’m not sure that this is going to happen. 12 Russian children have been murdered by their US adoptive parents over the past 10 years and 3 others that I can think of were adopted by pedophiles and if that didn’t do it, I don’t know that this will either. I would definitely expect a slow down in the process. It would be really unfortunate if this turned out to be the last straw- according to the State Department 1,600 orphans were adopted by US families last year and the vast majority of those adoptions were successful. A U.S. government delegation will arrive in Moscow next week to discuss rules for American parents who want to adopt Russian children. I think everything will be ironed out. After all, Russia wants its orphans to find families. Expect further updates from the State Department.

Grace Kennedy