USCIS Strategic Plan 2008-2012

USCIS Strategic Plan 2008-2012

The USCIS Strategic Plan 2008-2012 was created to identify the challenges faced by the United States regarding border protection and to create a framework for addressing these challenges.

Identified and described the significant challenges faced by the United States regarding border protection or illegal immigration.

The Plan identified three challenges formally, and discusses a fourth challenge without formally describing it as such. The three challenges described in the Plan are:

• That entities intent on harming the United States are becoming sophisticated in their methods of gaining illegal entry.
• That the workload is unpredictable and determined by factors outside USCIS control
• That there is variety in the motivations of some entities to exploit our immigration system for nefarious purposes. (2007, p. 7).

The fourth “informal” challenge discussed is that “there is a lack of public consensus on the ideal U.S. citizenship characteristics” (2007, p. 10). This supposed “lack of consensus” is the justification used by the Obama Administration to interfere with the mission of the USCIS, and will be described in more detail as we discuss the efficiency of the Plan.

USCIS has addressed these challenges with the following methods; the creation of the Strategic Plan with it's six goals

• Strengthen the security and integrity of the immigration system
• Provide effective customer-oriented immigration benefit and information

services

• Support immigrants’ integration and participation in American civic culture
• Promote flexible and sound immigration policies and programs
• Strengthen the infrastructure supporting the USCIS mission
• Operate as a high-performance organization that promotes a highly talented workforce (2007, p.3)

In addition, USCIS has accomplished the following; reformed name check processing, established the National Security and Records Verification Directorate (NSRV), created a digitization initiative for immigration records to modernize the way documents are shared with partner agencies , expanded the E-Verify program, incorporated biometric checks , created the Office of Security and Integrity (OSI) , balanced the agency’s workload and personnel among the USCIS field offices, and realigned field management structure into four regions to improve mission performance (2007, pp, 13-15).

There was no summary to the report.

However, the success of these measures is hard to judge considering the roadblocks that the Obama administration has placed between USCIS and the accomplishment of it's mission. A Congressional Digest report discusses the arguments that “nonenforcement policy represents an abdication of the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) statutory responsibilities to enforce Federal immigration law” (2015, p.8). Certainly, the integrity of USCIS is open to question under this administration. Border Patrol agents who have done their duty as opposed to abdicating it have suffered from workplace retaliation, as discussed in a Fox News report, Senate probes claims of workplace retaliation for Border Patrol agents not enforcing Obama orders (2015).

As part of the field management realignment, the Central Region is one of four regions that perform the USCIS mission; Central Region adheres to the same Strategic Plan as the other Regions. As discussed previously, the intent of the structural realignment was to balance the agency workload and personnel allocation. USCIS states that this will increase mission performance.

References

Legality of Obama’s immigration initiatives. (2015). Congressional Digest, 94(3), 7. Retrieved May 9, 2015 from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=pwh&AN=101376882&site=eds-live

Senate probes claims of workplace retaliation for Border Patrol agents not enforcing Obama orders. (2015, April 1). Fox News. Retrieved May 9, 2015, from http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/04/01/senate-probes-claims-workplace-retaliation-for-border-patrol-agents-not/

United States Citizenship and Immigration Services. (2007). USCIS Strategic Plan 2008-2012. Retrieved April 15, 2015 from http://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/USCIS/About%20Us/Budget%2C%20Planning%20and%20Performance/USCIS_Strategic_Plan_2008-2012.pdf