IG says USCIS Needs to Halt ELIS for Naturalization Application Processing

The Office of Inspector General for the Department of Homeland Security has issued some kind of urgent recommendation to not use an electronic system to process naturalization benefits for immigrants.

They cite all kinds of problems like inefficient background checks and other things.

The system was apparently stopped temporarily last and is scheduled to start again soon.

The IG says don't.

More holes in the system.

IG: USCIS Needs to Halt ELIS for Naturalization Application Processing

In a rare action, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Office of Inspector General (IG) recommended US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) “stop plans to reinstate use of the Electronic Immigration System (ELIS) to process naturalization benefits for immigrants.”

The IG stated, “The urgent recommendation stems from an ongoing review which discovered alarming security concerns regarding inadequate background checks and other functionality problems with ELIS. Rather than waiting several months to issue a report when the ongoing audit is completed, the IG is taking the extraordinary step of elevating this urgent issue to USCIS leadership early so that immediate corrective action can be taken.”

In August 2016, the IG explained, “USCIS decided to discontinue the use of ELIS to process naturalization applications due to these problems. However, during its current review, the IG learned of an impending decision by USCIS to return to ELIS processing in late January 2017.”

I read that and can't figure out what the hell they are actually saying, have they not checked the backgrounds of these people or not verified the information before proceeding? It sounds like that is what they are trying to say without saying it directly. Nobody is following up on the info seems to be the problem that I see.

Is my interpretation right? Getting tired.

a reply to: rickymouse

It is a bit confusing.

That system must be too.

originally posted by: xuenchen
a reply to: rickymouse

It is a bit confusing.

That system must be too.

The system was designed by the government, of course it is confusing, they go out of their way to make things confusing I think.

The ELIS electronic immigration record keeping, and online forms was contracted out by the govt to IBM. And it didn't roll out well. Checks against FBI data was missing, home addresses were inaccurate. Users returned to using paper forms. IG says it should not be used as planned this year. Yikes!

More background here

A decade into a project to digitize U.S. immigration forms, just 1 is online

originally posted by: rickymouse
I read that and can't figure out what the hell they are actually saying, have they not checked the backgrounds of these people or not verified the information before proceeding? It sounds like that is what they are trying to say without saying it directly. Nobody is following up on the info seems to be the problem that I see.

Is my interpretation right? Getting tired.

The US doesn't have a database on everyone around the world. We have our database, and often we can request information from other nations if we think they have information. If both come back clean, and the person doesn't match a record of known criminals/terrorists, what do you expect them to do?

We can't know what we don't know.

originally posted by: Aazadan

originally posted by: rickymouse
I read that and can't figure out what the hell they are actually saying, have they not checked the backgrounds of these people or not verified the information before proceeding? It sounds like that is what they are trying to say without saying it directly. Nobody is following up on the info seems to be the problem that I see.

Is my interpretation right? Getting tired.

The US doesn't have a database on everyone around the world. We have our database, and often we can request information from other nations if we think they have information. If both come back clean, and the person doesn't match a record of known criminals/terrorists, what do you expect them to do?

We can't know what we don't know.

Yeah, checking on them in an area where the ones in charge are possibly terrorists might not be a good way find out anything useful.

Call to town in Syria..... " Hi there, do you know if this person has anything to do with ISIS" ....."No, never heard of him having anything to do with us". He's clean as a whistle, by the way, tell him to make sure to come home for the celebration in January, my wife, his mother wants him to help set things up" Approved, his dad the ISIS leader gave him a good reference.