21st Century U.S. Immigration: Welcoming Immigrants to America

10:00 A.M. EDT

Real Audio of Briefing

MR. BOOKBINDER: Good morning and welcome to the Foreign Press Center. We're very pleased this morning to have with us Mr. Prakash Khatri, who is the Citizenship and Immigration Services Ombudsman for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Mr. Khatri will be talking about 21st century U.S. immigration: welcoming immigrants to America. Mr. Khatri will make opening remarks, and then we'll throw it open to take your questions. So without further ado, let me introduce Mr. Prakash Khatri. Please.

MR. KHATRI: Thank you very much, Joe, for inviting me here this morning. I know that all of you are anxiously awaiting new news on immigration, and I hope that at least, if nothing else, we will provide you with some very interesting new developments that have occurred. And some of you may have already followed some of this through the last few weeks and months, that we -- our particular little organization has been in a place, and how we are hoping that that will help in developing the 21st century immigration system that truly welcomes immigrants from all over the world, and how we're hoping to be a part of that.

So, without further ado, let me just briefly give you a little background on our office, and also to share a few thoughts and then open it up for questions, and hopefully, I'll be able to answer all your questions.

As a nation of immigrants with a rich immigration heritage, obviously, a significant challenge that we in the United States have in the 21st century is a system that ensures both the safety of our borders, and yet, openly welcomes immigrants, as we have done for generations in the past here.

When the President signed the Homeland Security Act of 2002, for the first time in U.S. history, what was done was that all of the different, disparate agencies that handled border protection or border entry were all consolidated under one roof, and with it came all the 22 different agencies, as I'm sure you all are fairly familiar. They were all brought together under the Department of Homeland Security.

While bringing these 22 agencies together, one of the things that happened was that two specific agencies, and two which are of some importance to the foreign press, namely the Customs Department and the Immigration and Naturalization Service, were actually brought together yet -- from the two agencies were actually created three separate distinct groups.

And so while bringing in 22 agencies, we actually created three agencies out of these two former agencies, and the way it was done was really interesting. And if you look at your package that we have provided to you, there is a modified org chart that we have provided, just to kind of clarify what actually did happen. If you look under the org chart there, what you will see is what was created was a Border and Transportation Security Under Secretary, and I believe Asa Hutchinson had previously been here before you; he is the head of that particular department. Under him were put the two law enforcement groups, namely the former Customs Department and enforcement folks and the immigration enforcement folks under the Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and then another group was created, Customs and Border Protection, which brought together all of the border inspection and processing folks from the border area, including border patrol, under this particular group.

Now what was left was the group that actually does the processing of the visas, actually the visa petitions and the immigrant visa petitions, and also adjustments of status or permanent residence petitions here in the United States, including the refugee and asylum aspects. That particular group, which is now known as United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, was actually taken from these legacy groups and elevated in significance, as you can see on the charts.

And that's the director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services on the right-hand side of your chart there and highlighted in yellow. And with it was created my office, which is on the other side, called the Citizenship and Immigration Services Ombudsman. So where in the past what has traditionally happened was that there was this feeling that the benefit side of immigration, or immigration and visa processing elements, were really given a back seat.

In this new structure, under the Homeland Security Act, the benefit side of immigration was actually elevated substantially to where the Director of USCIS is considered the equivalent of the Under Secretary in this particular org chart. And when this was done together with the fact that my office was created for the purpose of overseeing and ensuring that the problems that exist within USCIS are actually dealt with, first and foremost, identified. And then, secondly, my office is charged with making recommendations for changes to the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services on problems that we have identified that both individuals and employers are having in their communications and their trying to seek the benefit that USCIS provides.

And so with that, you can clearly see that what's happened is the benefit side of immigration has taken some real prominence in this new Homeland Security structure. And this past month here, in the latter part of June, my office issued its first annual report which, again, we have provided to you in the package that we have provided, and it is available online at our website.

And in that particular annual report, we identified some of the things that many of you in the press here may have already known of, and that is that there are five key areas that we identified that are problems that seem to pervade the immigration benefits system.

Firstly, obviously, the issue of prolonged processing times. Many of you are from press areas around the world where there are substantial numbers of immigrants that may be awaiting processing of their immigrant petitions. And there is a substantial prolonged delay that has existed, and to that end, we are making recommendations and I'll share with you a few tidbits of the kinds of recommendations we are making in that area.

Also, obviously, immigration benefits fraud that continues to pervade and continues to take up a lot of our resources, which really should be focused on the legal people attempting to get the benefits. And so that aspect is also being identified as one of the areas that we will make some recommendations on.

Limited case status information; so, for people who might have filed some time ago, trying to figure out how long it's taking to process, when are they going to get their immigrant visa, when are they going to get their petition approved for a non-immigrant visa for professionals and others wanting to come?

Those are all issues that our office deals with. In addition to that, obviously, the insufficient standardization and processing where -- you know, people have noticed that if you file in one place or another, you may have a better chance of getting a visa -- those types of issues are also things that we are looking at to make sure that there is uniformity across the board, so that at the Texas service center, it's not slower than at the California service center of the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services. Also, the inadequate information technology and facilities that exist there, those are also things that we are looking at.

Our key thing, our key primary objective is being to develop thoughtful and practical recommendations that support the effective 21st century immigration system, that not only ensures national security, which is, obviously, a key aspect of everything that any country would do, but also promotes efficiencies through the use of modern technology and also offers improved customer service.

To do those three in a way that is non-intrusive, customer-friendly, and shows the welcoming nature of the American immigration system is truly what we're all committed to. And that's what we're hoping that we will be able to do.

Now, you may ask, well, what has your organization done? And that's a legitimate question for you to ask. In our first annual report, you will notice that we have made three key recommendations in this first year. One was to streamline the immediate relative immigrant processing system. The second was to reengineer the Permanent Resident Card replacement program, which many permanent residents of the U.S. who travel quite frequently were having issues with. Also, another major area was the employment-based immigrant visa processing system. And so those are the three key areas that we made substantive recommendations on and our annual report does document that.

I'll just highlight one key area which should be of some interest to some of you as to how our office is making a difference. We made a recommendation on the family-based immigrant processing. Here in the United States, if you have a foreign national that has come to the U.S. and is married to a U.S. citizen or is the parent or child of a U.S. citizen, they can file, in most cases, an application to get their green card here. Now, when they do that, quite often it would take anywhere from four months in some areas to as much as three years in others. And what we did was, we actually made a recommendation to do the processing in a manner which would substantially increase the speed.

And today in Dallas, there is a pilot program that the Citizenship and Immigration Services is testing out, wherein a processing time that -- in jurisdictions like New York is taking three years or more to process, to get a green card, is actually being done in 75 days or less.

Now do we have the results of that? Yes, we do. The program started in May, and as of last week, people had started getting their green cards issued to them already. So within 75 days the program has shown that it is working and people are receiving their green cards.

Now this is a substantial change in how U.S. immigration will, in the future, be handled. And we're hoping that across the board, as we make the recommendations, these U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services will take on the opportunity to look at our recommendations as they have and move forward, and we will make a substantial difference.

Having said that, let me open up the floor for a few questions and maybe find out what's on your minds and see if I could answer some of your questions.

MR. BOOKBINDER: Okay, who would like to begin? We’ll begin with India.

QUESTION: My name is Sridhar Krishnaswami from the Hindu newspaper. Have you made any recommendations in terms of resources that you'll need, for example, to process an application that is being filed from overseas?

I see much of your presentation is U.S.-oriented. But do you have any idea as to how long it takes for a sponsorship, say, for even for immediate relatives who are based here, who are sponsoring their father, mother, brother or sister? In regards, I mean, in response to that.

MR. KHATRI: Sure. We're actually looking at the I-130 process which impacts the -- specifically, the family-based immigrants. And as many of you may know, there is upwards of 1.8 million pending applications for family-based immigrants under the -- what's known as the I-130 category. And that particular category, there's two things involved. There is a statutory limit that's set by Congress on the number of immigrants that can come into the United States every year.

But there's also this other element, and that is the processing of the actual petition itself. For individuals who are immediate relatives such as parents, spouses or children, there is no limit on the number of immigrants that can come in. And that is where -- what we are trying to focus on is ensuring that USCIS is using the most up-to-date technology to quickly and securely process all of these applications. And to that end, we are making and we are reviewing a lot of their processes and making recommendations because many of the problems that do come up and the things that we hear about are in that particular arena. And so, we are focusing on that, yes.

MR. BOOKBINDER: Good. Let's go to Mexico, in the front. Wait for the microphone please.

QUESTION: My name is Maria Garcia from Notimex. Do you have any work on the foreign correspondent visa? There is a lot of open questions about it. For example, you say that as long as we don't leave the country, even though our visa is expired, it doesn't matter. But how long is that long, it's three months, six months, or whatever?

And there is another problem. Some people, like myself, have the visa attached to the drivers’ license. And they told me that -- they gave me my drivers’ license for one year -- and they told me, if you don't have your visa renewed, you have to start all the tests for your driver license and I think that is unfair, for example.

MR. KHATRI: Well, something like that, obviously, I'd love to hear from you specifically on the issues that you're facing. There are a number of initiatives underway within the various agencies on issues that do concern things like the state issuance of drivers’ licenses and their limitations. Sometimes it's been very confusing with 50 different states having their own individual policies and processes. It is difficult for them to sometimes understand the difference between an I Visa and an F-1 Visa, for example, or a B-2 Visa that may have a specific limitation on time. And those are the kinds of things that, when you bring that up to our attention or to the attention of the State Department, it does then allow, within DHS, the ability to look at that and to try to resolve those issues, because quite often, it's not the State Department issue or the Homeland Security issue, it's a Florida state or New York state agency that may have that issue. So clearly, bring that up to us and bring it up and we will move it forward to the appropriate people who deal with that particular issue.

MR. BOOKBINDER: Okay. We'll go to the gentleman from Russia in the back.

QUESTION: My name is Jury Igorevich, Business in Russia Magazine. I have two questions. First is, do you have any kind of figures or statistics for the past three years since September 11, 2001, how the immigration influx of people who would like to go to the United States to live and work -- what kind of tendencies do you see and what kind of problems people have for the past three years in order to get into the United States?

And the second issue, that countries like Canada, New Zealand, Australia, typically immigrant countries, they have different kind of special programs for so-called young professionals, so that the people are invited to come and work with their families, with their, you know, professions, education and so on. As I know, because we have, for the past several months, you know, some people who have been studying here from Russia, studying not just on a permanent base, but just coming for three months, six months, different kind of programs. And they would like to continue work here for some private American companies, but they face a lot of different obstacles and problems: changing visas, changing status and so on and so forth.

Do you envision any kind of programs for young professionals, let's say the age of -- before 35, that they had a chance to come to this country to work for American companies and -- you know, to bring their families?

MR. KHATRI: The first question on the statistics, we are currently compiling some of those statistics. Obviously, statistics that we're interested in relate to change of status issues, relate to the number of people coming in that may have problems with immigration. And so within the next few months, obviously, that is something that we have focused on. It's an ongoing process to attempt to get the appropriate statistics.

On the issue of young professionals wanting to come to the U.S., there are a number of different visas that are available, obviously, for them. And sometimes, obviously, because our rules have certain limitations, they may come for one purpose and then decide they want to switch their purpose to yet another purpose, and that's where it becomes a little challenging. And we would love to hear of issues that you are having, because when there is a change of status request done and there is an issue that comes up, that is something within the purview of USCIS, because they are the agency that do the change of status.

And so, we would welcome any information that you have or your readers have on issues that they're having with that particular aspect of it and we would gladly look into it, how we can make a recommendation.

One of the other things that we have asked a lot of our people here in the U.S. to do, and it applies for people who are wanting to immigrate or come as non-immigrants, is many of you have really great suggestions on solutions. One of the things that has never been asked of people in the past is, provide us your solutions, because if you are the user, sometimes, something that's very obvious, we may miss. So as you provide us the problems, also give us your solutions, because that may help us to move the process a lot faster of change.

Because, as I've earlier stated, we're truly committed to ensuring that we do create a system that is both secure and welcoming of immigrants, and it's a fine line. And that's where -- you know, we need your help as you, the users of the system, find problems. Again, the limitation my office has is, it's limited to the issues in dealing with the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services. We -- our jurisdiction does not extend to the Department of State. However, if you want to send us the information, we'll forward it on to them. That's always something we can do.

MR. BOOKBINDER: Mr. Khatri, what would be the best way for people who want to provide information, solutions, and problems? What's the best way for them to do that?

MR. KHATRI: The best way to do it is, obviously, through the 21st century methods of e-mail. And our e-mail address is CISombudsman@dhs.gov. So, it's CISombudsman, o-m-b-u-d-s-m-a-n, @dhs.gov. And again, you can find us also on the DHS website, which is at dhs.gov and we have links from there to our e-mail as well, so that would be the best way.

MR. BOOKBINDER: Okay. Let's continue. India?

QUESTION: L.K. Sharma, Deccan Herald. I was wondering, how do you feel taking up this assignment at a time when your objective will be actually running into greater resistance from the Administration, whose idea will be to sort of raise the walls because of security concerns. That's number one.

And number two, I'm not quite clear, some of these things which are being taken up by an ombudsman are more like functions of a policy planning unit which they could have done years ago as part of reform system. I thought ombudsmen only dealt with complaints, so what exactly is your mandate and to what extent you are going to improve their policies, which are already basic to their working?

MR. KHATRI: Well, first and foremost, obviously, the policy of this Administration is clearly to welcome immigrants. It is not to put up walls, artificial barriers that hinder free trade and free travel to this country. Quite clearly, as part of that, we want to be sure that both the traveling public and the individuals that seek to come to this country are protected and that they are not subjected to undue harm.

And so, as part of that, it is a policy of ensuring that we put in the appropriate security measures to ensure the security of both the citizens and the traveling public, but also ensure that we create less hindrances that can otherwise be avoided. And things like processing times -- extended processing times can be reduced substantially and this administration is committed to a six-month or less processing time on every application that is filed. And, you know, by 2006, USCIS has assured that they will get to that point and we will certainly make all the recommendations to ensure that that does happen in a timely manner.

As far as the mandate of my office, the mandate is specified in Section 452 of the Homeland Security Act and I have provided a copy of that mandate to you. Under the mandate, we have three key areas that we focus on:

First is identifying the problems that individuals and employers are having with USCIS; and then, once we've identified the problems, we then, are to make recommendations for change to USCIS processes and administrative policies, to ensure that those problems do not recur. And that's basically the mandate that we have, and to that end, obviously, we have offices that we will be setting up around the country in the coming years to ensure that the local issues that impact citizens and non-immigrants and immigrants to this country are taken care of and that we will provide sufficient number of people to be able to do that.

MR. BOOKBINDER: Okay. A follow-up?

QUESTION: You were giving figures about the green card replacement. What about the green card itself? Is there any rough estimate -- how much time does it take now and how it used to be earlier?

MR. KHATRI: The current processing times, they are posted on the USCIS website. There is a substantial delay in processing, as we all know, on a number of those forms and applications and that is something that we are working on.

QUESTION: So, what is the range?

MR. KHATRI: Any specific --

QUESTION: The green card applications from the day of its submission, what is the maximum or minimum time? What is the range of the --

MR. KHATRI: Well, it's taking as little as four months in some jurisdictions to as much as three or four years to process a visa petition currently.

QUESTION: But you mentioned that in the context of green card replacement. I'm talking the original -- the first green card.

MR. KHATRI: Now, that's what we're talking about.

QUESTION: Right.

MR. KHATRI: I'm sorry. I think the green card replacement is a replacement of the green card after a person's been here for 10 years and the card is expiring. That's one element, but the piece that we have been working on very feverishly is the actual application for a green card, and that is that Dallas pilot program where a person is applying for the first green card. It currently takes three or four months to three years, depending on where you file. And that particular process is being cut down to as little as 75 days for most applicants by the recommendation that we made on the Dallas -- where USCIS has implemented a pilot project to test out our theory and it's actually working.

QUESTION: There used to be an issue -- I'm not really clear about the exact problem or the complaint, but these people who applied for a green card, they could not go out, they couldn't -- in times of family emergencies, they could not visit their countries, because once you go out, something happens. So, is that an issue which you have come to understand more?

MR. KHATRI: Yes. That particular issue that you're talking about is known as the Advance Parole. Once a person is here in the country with an application for a green card here, if they have a family emergency, they're required to have what's known as Advance Parole to leave this country and then return in that same status so that they can continue to get the benefit that they initially sought.

That particular program is one that is of great interest to my office and we have been working on a number of fixes to that. And some recommendations will be forthcoming in the coming months on the Advance Parole issue that a number of people are impacted by.

MR. BOOKBINDER: Excellent. Let's go to Japan in the back.

QUESTION: My name is Ken Karube from Jiji Press, Japan. I'd like to know the assessment or your (inaudible) that relationship between administration and each state. And my understanding is, United States -- and so, for example, Virginia or Maryland, et cetera, they have independency, but we had -- so, we foreigners have many small impediments or inconvenient issues. For example, drivers’ license, et cetera.

How can you (inaudible) with these states, or can you order something to the states?

MR. KHATRI: The states obviously set their own rules, but there's often many misunderstandings about federal documentation, and that is where the federal government can help in ensuring that appropriate educational materials are sent to the states to assist them in interpreting visas, for example. You know, there's a myriad, as you all know, of different non-immigrant visas with different rules. And sometimes it is difficult even for the experienced person to understand the various different definitions.

The states have the same kinds of issues with many of the documents that are issued and that is something that's being looked at very carefully, obviously, on a regular basis to ensure there's no misinterpretation. And that's clearly something that we are interested in ensuring does happen.

MR. BOOKBINDER: Okay, let's go to Korea.

QUESTION: My name is Chong Hyuk Kim, working for Joong Ang Ilbo in Korea, and this is not a question, just a comment. If you go to Korea and if you go to the U.S. Embassy in Korea, you will meet a long queue, waiting for a visa interview. And so that kind of a complicated process makes Koreans got angry with America and that's one of the causes of anti-U.S. sentiment in Korea. And I think that similar situations are happening all over the world. So I know that it is not your business, but I wonder if the U.S. Government has come to realize that kind of situation and what kind of things the U.S. Government is going to do to deal with that matter.

MR. KHATRI: Any attempt or any problem that individuals have in free flow of travel, including long lines, is something that is of great concern. The challenge, obviously, is budgets and various other aspects as well that do impact these issues, and also just the awareness of the seriousness of the issues. And if you have these types of issues, bring them up, and obviously, the State Department or any other government agency that has those dealings -- in this case, it's the State Department and its entities abroad -- would very much be interested.

Now how can that be solved? In some cases, obviously, with new technology, U.S.-VISIT and various other things, those kinds of issues are being addressed because we can rapidly screen people. And so, yes, those are, you know, clearly, things that are of great concern to all of us as we try to create a system that is friendly and welcoming. And, you know, to hear of what's happening in South Korea is obviously of concern always.

MR. BOOKBINDER: Okay. We'll go back to India.

QUESTION: Well, this whole system seems to have been devised for the benefit of attorneys who work in the immigration system, considering the complexity. So your present task is actually to challenge your fellow colleagues who will not be very happy about this?

MR. KHATRI: Well, you know, my task is not to challenge my colleagues. It's to ensure that people who seek legal benefits to come to this country are provided that in the most efficient, most secure and most customer-friendly manner. If it ends up affecting my colleagues, as you call them, I think the immigration attorneys that I know of would be just as happy as I am to fix many of the problems that have existed in the past.

MR. BOOKBINDER: Right here, in the front.

QUESTION: I'd like to just ask a follow-up question to the Russian question earlier about professionals coming to the country. I know that the State Department has a number of non-immigrant visa categories and some are for professionals who have expertise in certain areas. Are there any immigration programs that encourage professionals with special expertise to come as immigrants?

MR. KHATRI: Yes, there are. There is a number of employment-based immigrant visas that are available, and frankly, today, all of those categories are current, from a standpoint of priority dates. Every one of the employment-based immigrant visa categories are current and it is something to look at. You know, there aren't too many times in the recent past that employment-based visas have been current. And so it's worth looking at if you are looking at taking advantage of the laws that do allow you to immigrate legally to this country based on employment-based categories.

QUESTION: All right. And I was just wondering, this pilot program in Dallas that you spoke about that's had such success, are you looking now to expand that? I mean, what plans are being made?

MR. KHATRI: My office makes the recommendations. USCIS then takes those and does the implementation. We fully, I mean, we recommended that particular project or that particular type of project. And so we clearly, support full implementation once all of the tests have been done. We certainly don't want to create a program or recommend a program that isn't tested out fully because we want to make sure that it's done correctly so that we don't then do it haphazardly long term.

So obviously, our key interest is to make sure that this pilot program does run its course. I believe USCIS is planning on running it through the end of this fiscal year, and by then we'll have sufficient results. Already the results are very, very promising.

MR. BOOKBINDER: Yes, India, again, in the front.

QUESTION: Just one quick question. Could you please flesh out a little bit what you said some time back about paroles? What are some of the recommendation that they are going to be making which will be beneficial or something a little better than what it is today?

MR. KHATRI: There is a number of different possibilities on parole. Obviously, some will require regulatory change. In terms of, firstly, how long it takes, those are process issues. In some cases, you know, people have a dying parent or a dying relative overseas and they need to go immediately. This should not be a situation where a person cannot leave the United States because the Immigration Service was unable to process an Advance Parole. That's the first area, obviously.

Secondly, once we get beyond parolees for immediate assistance, there is a whole group of business travelers who have immigrant visas that are pending in this country. Why should they be subjected to months of waiting when, in fact, they have a pending application here?

So those are the kinds of issues that we are getting from attorneys and various users of the system, and we're seeing these complaints come in. What we are doing is we're taking these complaints and we're looking at, well, how do we change the course that we are on and move it in a direction where it is more customer-friendly, yet there is no compromise of security?

If people are waiting and they have already got their application, maybe we should combine the application so that when they actually file their green card application it's an automatic application for Advance Parole, so you don't have to do a separate application, which then takes months to process.

So those are the kinds of things that we are looking at. Maybe the receipts can act as Advance Parole, but in order to do that, we also have to look at what are the security implications of that. So we're looking at various ways of doing it and everything is open. We're not restricted. We're not in the closed-box situation. We're actually looking at any out-of-the-box type creative thought processes using today's technology.

QUESTION: Parole is not a very nice term.

MR. KHATRI: Truly. "Parole" is not a very gentle term. That is certainly something that's from many, many years back; it needs to be changed. "Alien" is not a very good term either, but it is used routinely in our laws. So that's something that, you know, will take some time but we will change those things.

MR. BOOKBINDER: Thank you, Mr. Khatri, for a very informative presentation. Thank you all very much for coming this morning.

MR. KHATRI: Thank you very much.