USCIS Prepares to Legalize Millions of Illegal Immigrants
President Barrack Obama had initiated an immigration policy to legalize an estimated 12 million of USA’s illegal immigrants earlier this year. The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS,) the federal agency that supervises immigration issues and grants visas, is getting ready to deal with the enormous increase in applications once this immigration policy becomes a law.
Even though the official estimate of the number of illegal immigrants who will apply for legal documents is not available, two research groups based in Washington, namely the Pew Hispanic Center and the Center for Immigration Studies, estimate that a minimum of 10.8 million illegal immigrants live in the country.
Alejandro Mayorkas, who took over as the director of USCIS in August this year, says that USCIS is equipped to process only around 6 million USA immigration applications a year. But, once President Obama’s immigration policy is passed, it may have to process that many USA immigration applications in just a few weeks. The processing of applications also involves tedious steps, such as collection of fingerprints and other biometric identity information.
USCIS is gearing up to cope up with the tremendous increase in the visa applications under Obama’s comprehensive immigration reform plan. Several measures are being implemented by the agency director Alejandro Mayorkas to process the applications faster. For instance, the agency is planning to use lockboxes to receive applications instead of local offices.
Allowing illegal immigrants to use a simple mail-in registration to set the legalization process in motion is another step that is to be taken.
The agency is also exploring ways to reduce backlogs and delays to ensure a better performance. Further, Mr. Mayorkas, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, and other officials have also been holding meetings across the United States to garner ideas from the public on how to deal with the situation.
well, this is good proposal of President Obama to Legalize Millions of Illegal Immigrants living in this country. This will definetely increase the economy of USA, by getting good revenue from these ilegals who later on become legals and pay their taxes.
[...] though the official estimate of the number of illegal immigrants who will apply for legal documents is not available, two research groups based in Washington, [...]