We're Listening

Last month, former U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) Director Emilio Gonzalez discussed an editorial printed in the New York Times about USCIS’ recent application backlog--at it generated more interest from readers than any other Leadership Journal entry to date, both in terms of the numbers of readers and posted comments.

I am not surprised. We all appreciate that immigration benefits granted by USCIS, including citizenship, employment authorization, and permanent residency for immigrants and their families, are incredibly important to you--our customers and stakeholders--and our nation. We also know that our business processes are not always transparent or easily understood—they are admittedly complex. In this Journal entry, I’ll try to address some of your comments.

Many comments dealt with the surge in applications that took place after USCIS announced its new fees. After a long, in-depth review of our financial situation, we increased our fees last summer. We had to. USCIS is almost completely funded by fees, and the agency was not meeting its obligations or operating costs under the old fee structure.

To meet those obligations, we needed to invest in new facilities and technology and build our staff to improve the service our customers deserve, knowing it would take some time to accomplish. These things do. We needed to ensure funds were actually coming in the door before hiring thousands of new employees or making investments in technology.

We expected an increase in filings prior to the fee increase, but not nearly the volume of filings we received. We did not foresee the impact of the national discussion on immigration reform, or gauge the impact of an overwhelmingly effective drive by community-based organizations to encourage immigrants to file for citizenship.

Now that the fee increase is generating needed revenue, we’re hiring and training 1,334 new adjudications officer and 521 new support staff – totaling 1,855 new USCIS employees, many of whom are already on board. We’ve shifted existing employees where that made sense, moved work where capacity was available. We are rehiring retired, experienced employees, and are developing new facilities to better serve customers. We’re even conducting interviews, where needed, on Saturdays, Sundays and after normal business hours.

At the same time, we’ve embarked on a joint plan with the FBI to eliminate the name check backlog. By providing additional funds to increase the FBI’s capacity to conduct name checks, we’ll eliminate the name check backlog by the end of next summer.

As a result of these combined efforts, we are now naturalizing new citizens at record levels. But just as important as what we are doing to address the surge in naturalization applications is what we are not doing: we are not compromising the quality or national security in processing these increased applications.

Again, thank you for reading and responding to USCIS’ previous Leadership Journal entry, and for reading this one. I look forward to reading your comments. This Journal is an excellent way to communicate with our stakeholders, and one that we intend to continue.

Jonathan “Jock” Scharfen
Acting Director, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services

Responding to the Oklahoma and Missouri Tornadoes

Today, Secretary Chertoff and I traveled to Picher, Okla. and Seneca, Mo. to asses the damage caused by the recent storms. I was struck by the severity of damage to the area. We would like to offer our condolences to those who lost loved ones.

In the aftermath of the storms FEMA was on the ground within hours and are on site to support local emergency managers and officials. We will continue to support the authorities on the ground.

The residents of Picher and Seneca have strong leadership from their local and state leaders. These leaders have spoken to the President as well as met with myself and Secretary Chertoff. They will receive support as requested to recover.

Bad weather continues to move through the Midwest, and I urge all residents in area to listen to the local authorities and head all warnings. Thankfully, most of the residents in the area were able to seek shelter and escape injury from the tornadoes.

From what we saw today the resiliency and spirit of the people remains strong. The residents of these two towns are committed to rebuilding and getting life back to normal. FEMA will continue to be there to support the local and state officials as needed as they continue the recovery effort.

David Paulison
FEMA Administrator

A Vicious Circle

When homeland security officials point out that we are still threatened by al-Qaeda, we are sometimes accused of fear-mongering. But when it comes to creating a bogeyman to scare the public, it’s our critics who are in a league by themselves.

The Washington Post recently recycled a travel association claim that overseas travel to the U.S. has declined since 2000 because people are treated badly at the border (“Fear Is A Tax, And We’re Eagerly Paying It,” Josef Joffe). I say recycled because this is at least the tenth time in the past year that much the same claim has been repeated, always accompanied by references to the same flawed poll. While saying they just want to encourage tourism, Joffe and the industry that commissioned the biased poll are in fact discouraging it by perpetuating fear of a border “security apparat,” whose face is “distorted by fear and suspicion.”

There are two problems with the claim that travel to the U.S. has declined because of harsh security at the border. First, the poll Joffe cites as evidence that border security is too harsh doesn’t actually show that at all. Half the respondents had not come to the U.S. in the last five years. So when they were asked whether they feared rude treatment in U.S. Customs, they weren’t relying on recent experience. The only data they had to go on was the news media. Peddling this uninformed judgment as proof that travelers are treated badly simply generates more stories claiming rude treatment in the U.S. It’s a nearly perfect example of a vicious circle.

The second problem with Joffe’s argument is that there has not been a reduction in travel to the United States. It is true that, after 9/11, there was a decline in global tourism (not just travel to the United States). However, international arrivals to the U.S. have risen for four consecutive years, and they have returned to pre-9/11 levels.

Some argue that those figures reflect a disproportionate increase in Canadian and Mexican visitors, while visitors from overseas (mostly Europe) are still below 2000 levels. Maybe so, but that in itself raises doubts about the claim that our border practices are deterring travel. The U.S. doesn’t have one line at the airport full of friendly inspectors for Canadians and a different line for Europeans.

So why has travel from Europe been slower to recover? Here’s one answer: During the last five years, transatlantic plane fares have steadily increased while intra-European fares have dropped, making it cheaper to fly from Britain to Southern Spain or Italy than to Florida. That’s a much more straightforward explanation for the slow recovery of transatlantic travel.

Want proof? How’s this--overseas travel to Canada dropped even further after 2001 than travel to the U.S. And travel to Canada has not been as quick to rebound. But no one thinks Canada’s border has gotten more unfriendly recently. Only transatlantic fares explain why European travel to both the U.S. and Canada have been slow to reach 2001 levels.

We at DHS want to attract more international travelers. We will continue to do whatever it takes to improve the quality of our welcome. But we won’t stay silent when aspersions are cast on the quality of our workforce.

Stewart Baker
Assistant Secretary for Policy

ICE and INTERPOL Cooperation Nabs Child Predator

One of the most important lessons for law enforcement in the 21st century is that cooperation in investigations is absolutely essential. As criminals and terrorists become more mobile, more sophisticated and more technologically savvy, it’s critical that law enforcement agencies across the board work together to get the job done.

That spirit of cooperation was on display in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) most recent success yesterday when we arrested a suspect in an international child predator investigation in New Jersey. The arrest stemmed from an alert circulated earlier this week by INTERPOL, the international law enforcement organization that works closely with ICE agents in fighting transnational criminal activity.

It was a tough case: The suspect’s name, nationality and location were a mystery. But his face was known from a series of photographs depicting the sexual abuse of three boys between the ages of six and 10 years old. The pictures, believed to have been taken in Southeast Asia, were originally discovered by police in Norway two years ago. Since then, the photographs have been circulated widely to law enforcement agencies around the world.

INTERPOL, working with ICE investigators, distributed a new alert on the suspect on May 6. Traffic to the INTERPOL Web site exploded, with more than a quarter million hits, as the public and law enforcement officials joined in to help offer information that might identify the suspect. Thanks to these Internet tips, by the morning of May 8, ICE agents arrested 59-year-old Wayne Nelson Corliss of Union City, N.J., who at this time is believed to be the man in the photographs.

This alleged predator is now in custody and will face charges for the exploitation of vulnerable children. It could not have happened without the coordination and cooperation of law enforcement investigators working around the world to keep children safe.

Julie L. Myers

Assistant Secretary

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement

An Op-ed the New York Times Editorial Page Refused to Run

When it comes to illegal immigration, the American people are tired of thirty years of lip service. They want our laws enforced. As Secretary of Homeland Security, I have directed my department to pursue that mandate, using all the tools permitted by law.

This involves a three-fold approach.

First, we stem the flow at the border by increasing the likelihood that illegal entrants – and smugglers of all types – will be detected, apprehended, and removed.

Second, we drive businesses to comply with laws against employing illegal workers.

Third, when we encounter those who are here illegally, we remove them.

Granted, we need a long-term solution involving a temporary worker program, legal immigration reform, and a fair policy to deal with illegal immigrants long-rooted here.

But the American people have demanded that we first demonstrate an effective commitment to enforce current laws. And even those who are sympathetic to the painful circumstances of illegal immigration question any change that might trigger new waves of entrants seeking to benefit from still-future waves of “reform.”

Our policies respond to this demand and to Congress. They may be tough, yet they are fair, and they are succeeding.

That success has now bred a firestorm of opposition. Opponents are driven by factors ranging from an ideological commitment to open borders to reliance on illegal workforces. Apparently, their strategy is to challenge every enforcement action with exaggerated or misleading cries of outrage. These challenges add up to a position that would forbid any effective enforcement.

The New York Times editorial page is a case in point.

Regarding interior enforcement, a March 27, 2008 editorial (“A Foolish Immigration Purge”) attacked our proposal that businesses receiving letters about workers whose names don’t match Social Security numbers clear up the discrepancy within three months. Under this proposal, if a mismatch is caused by an innocent clerical mistake, the mistake is simply corrected. But if it’s caused by an illegal worker carrying a forged identity, the employer must act. Ignoring this distinction, the Times falsely implied that businesses would have to fire workers even for innocent errors.

A December 18, 2006 editorial (“Swift Raids”) protested earlier efforts at workplace enforcement. It was followed by an October 4, 2007 editorial (“Stop the Raids”) which depicted our enforcement efforts on Long Island and elsewhere as trampling on localities. But an April 16, 2008 editorial (“New Jersey’s Immigration Crackdown”) castigated Garden State localities for their enforcement efforts.

Concerning border security, an April 3, 2008 editorial (“Michael Chertoff’s Insult”) condemned our exercise of legal authority to waive certain environmental regulations that would have stopped us from fulfilling the explicit mandate of Congress to put fencing, roads, and lighting in place this year in order to stem drug and human smuggling.

The editorial failed to mention that we had previously conducted multiple environmental reviews or that the Interior Department has complained that some border areas are so endangered by smugglers that visitors and employees are turned away.

Taken together, these examples suggest that in some quarters, no enforcement technique is acceptable. Of course, if none is acceptable, enforcing immigration law becomes impossible.

Perhaps that’s what some critics really want. In a March 4, 2008 editorial (“Border Insecurity”), this newspaper takes aim at the very propriety of defending our sovereignty and our laws:

“From San Diego on the Pacific to Brownsville on the Rio Grande, a steel curtain is descending across the continent. Behind it lies a nation….that has decided to wall itself off….”

In this rewrite of lines from Winston Churchill’s Iron Curtain address, the editorialists outrageously compare America’s attempts to secure its own borders against smugglers with Josef Stalin’s subjugation of Eastern Europe.

In the end, the debate is not about enforcement tactics. It’s about enforcing the rule of law. Do our critics want a country where employers create economic incentives for people to come here illegally? Do they desire an America with open borders and uncontrolled illegal migration? Should federal officials tacitly allow this to happen by rejecting every meaningful effort to enforce the law?

In the end, two truths stand out. We need to continue to discuss reforms to our immigration laws. But we must continue to uphold our current laws by enforcing them.

Michael Chertoff