Wednesday, May 10, 2017

Why the DHS loses 99.6% of Visa Overstays

According to the Office of Inspector General, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has a tangled web of IT systems that would make Mark Zuckerberg cry, and Google someone else to fix it. After reading the 45 page report, I wanted to take a bunch of sleeping pills myself, and find a quiet place.
The report, issued May 1 reveals some damning evidence of bureaucratic red tape, and makes a case for an entire overhaul of their IT network. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which operates under the DHS, has 27 databases with which to track visa applicants.
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While the number of outlets may seem impressive, ICE agents aren’t always aware of which databases are best to use, and can’t be trained on all 27. If the systems can’t talk to each other, and trained agents can’t understand them as users, what good are they? The result is inefficient use of resources, and tremendous waste of tax dollars.
The aforementioned databases are spread across three agencies merged with the DHS since it was created in 2002. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has seven, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has 11, and ICE has eight more. Some are integrated and share information, but since being rolled together 15 years ago, these databases have not been merged, and many are still operating in 1990’s format. Furthermore, we still don’t have biometric entry/exit systems in place yet, and even when we do, most of these databases won’t be able to process the data that comes in.
Read the rest of the story HERE.

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