First Ten Areas of Focus for Agency-wide Policy Review Public Survey announced by USCIS
August 24th, 2010The results of the USCIS Policy Review have been recently publicized by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS.) The USCIS Policy Review was a complete review of the agency’s customer service policies, procedures, and guidance.
A survey was issued by USCIS in April 2010 seeking help from any member of the public or its own employees to find out the issue areas that required attention. Around 5,600 responses from stakeholders, including present immigrant and non-immigrant visa holders, employers, and immigration attorneys were received by USCIS. Apart from these 5,600 responses, 2,400 employers from USCIS also responded to this survey. From the survey results, USCIS could identify the top ten issue areas that needed to be addressed first.
The top ten issue areas include Nonimmigrant H-1B Status, Employment Authorization Documents (EAD,) Naturalization in special cases and Citizenship, National Customer Service Center (NCSC,) Employment-based Immigration Status, Form I-601, Refugee and Asylum Adjustment of Status, Employment-Based Adjustment of Status, Family-Based Adjustment of Status, and other Humanitarian Programs.
The USCIS Policy Review was carried out in four stages. The review began with information gathering. USCIS gathered the existing policy documents from the USCIS offices around the country. Once all the policy documents, including guidance memo, training manuals, and operational guidance were gathered, USCIS went on categorizing them into appropriate issue areas.
With the issue areas categorized, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services issued a survey to the public and the USCIS employees to help prioritize the issue areas. The survey was then examined and the top ten issue areas were recognized.
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services is taking the help of subject matter experts from around USCIS offices to begin the review in the top ten issue areas. USCIS will maintain its rapport with the public to get their feedback and serve them better. The course of action that is required for each issue area will be determined based on USCIS’s goals, requirements, and responses. Once the policies are approved, they will be compiled into a single electronic resource for both the employers and the public.