USWorkVisa.com News Archive
for the ‘GAO’ Category

In a new Government Accountability Office (GAO) report, “Immigration Enforcement: ICE Could Improve Controls to Help Guide Alien Removal Decision Making,” the GAO found that the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has begun to update and enhance training curricula to better support officer decision-making but that the agency has not taken steps to ensure that written guidance to promote the appropriate exercise of discretion during apprehension and removal is comprehensive and up to date and has not established time frames for updating guidance. For example, the GAO noted, field operational manuals have not been updated to provide information about the appropriate exercise of discretion in light of a recent expansion of ICE worksite enforcement and fugitive operations, in which officers are more likely to encounter persons with humanitarian issues or who are not targets of investigations. Also, ICE does not have a mechanism to ensure the timely dissemination of information on legal developments that would enable officers to make decisions in line with the most recent interpretations of immigration law. As a result, the GAO said, ICE officers are “at risk of taking actions that do not support operational objectives and making removal decisions that do not reflect the most recent legal developments.”

The GAO recommended that ICE update its guidance to include factors officers should consider when making apprehension and removal decisions and establish time frames for this task; ensure that officers are provided timely information on legal developments affecting their decisions; and evaluate the costs and alternatives for developing a mechanism to analyze officer decision-making systematically. The Department of Homeland Security agreed and identified actions ICE plans to take to implement the GAO’s recommendations. The report, GAO-08-67, is available at http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d0867.pdf.

The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) has released “Higher Education: Challenges in Attracting International Students to the United States and Implications for Global Competitiveness.” The report notes that more international students obtain a higher education in the U.S. than in any other country, and they make valuable contributions while they are here. For those students returning home after their studies, the GAO said, such exchanges support federal public diplomacy efforts and can improve understanding among nations. The GAO noted that international students have earned at least a-third of all U.S. degrees at both the master’s and doctoral levels in several science, technology, engineering, and mathematics fields. Yet recent trends, including a drop in international student enrollment in U.S. colleges and universities, and policy changes after September 11, 2001, have raised concerns about whether the U.S. will continue to attract talented international students.

The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) has issued a report analyzing challenges that continue to face the US-VISIT program. The GAO noted that US-VISIT has improved the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS’s) ability to process visitors and verify identities upon entry, but found that management controls in place to identify and evaluate computer and other operational problems at land ports of entry were insufficient and inconsistently administered. In addition, the GAO noted, a biometric exit capability is not yet available. The GAO said that DHS continues to face longstanding US-VISIT management challenges and future uncertainties.

The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) said in a recent report that the Department of Homeland Security’s US-VISIT program has not yet implemented a biometric exit capability or a suitable alternative. Among other things, the GAO said that the DHS has continued to pursue US-VISIT without fleshing out the program’s operational and technological context. The DHS also has launched other major security programs without defining the relationship between US-VISIT and those programs. Without effective management controls, the GAO said, there is a risk that US-VISIT “will not produce the right solution, and be managed the right way.” The report makes numerous recommendations to address the DHS’s management challenges with respect to US-VISIT.

The GAO report is available here.

The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) has released a report discussing the use of J-1 visa waivers as a major means of providing physicians to practice in underserved areas of the U.S. As the report notes, over 1,000 waivers were requested in each of fiscal years 2003 through 2005 by states and three federal agencies. In contrast to a decade ago, when federal agencies requested the vast majority of waivers, states have become the primary source of J-1 visa waiver requests.