CSC article

[tywy_99]

No wonder CSC has been so blazing fast!...............

 

 

 

 

Document Shredding: One Way to Reduce Paperwork Backlog at INS

March 28, 2003

If you or anyone you know may have submitted some sort of immigration related filing with the Laguna Niguel, California office of the Immigration and Naturalization Service (now Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services) in the past year or two, the documents filed may have ended up in the paper shredder, and not by mistake. According to a federal indictment handed down in recent weeks, at least two officials working at the facility were responsible for ordering the shredding of up to 90,000 documents, including applications and supporting documentation for all types of immigration benefits, including family based visa petitions and political asylum, as well as actual Employment Authorization Documents, birth certificates and passports.

 

According to the indictment, the shredding activity took place between February and April 2002, and the individuals charged were not actual employees of the INS, but instead worked for JHM Research and Development of Maryland, a company hired by the INS to more efficiently receipt-in and perform initial processing on volumes of incoming immigration filings. The two individuals charged were assigned to the INS' California Service Center, one of 4 regional service centers in the U.S. that processes a wide spectrum of immigration related filings for individuals residing in the western part of the U.S., most notably the entire state of California.

 

Apparently, the indicted officials ordered lower level employees to shred the documentation to create the appearance of success in attacking the workload and reducing the prevailing backlog - thereby creating a means to take credit for a job well done without actually doing any work. And once the backlog was reduced to zero, according to the charges, the officials kept in place their new procedures in order to maintain the seemingly wonderful status quo they had created.

 

The good news is that the scheme was an isolated incident - caught sooner rather later and the INS as well as the government contractor, JHM were cleared of any responsibility. And to the credit of the various government agencies involved in the investigation, including the INS Office of Internal Audit, the Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General and the Office of the U.S. Attorney for Southern California, relatively swift action was taken to identify the alleged culprits, institute their prosecution and of course implement improved security measures.

 

Individuals who believe their filing may have fallen victim to the paper shredder have been encouraged to contact a special hotline set up at the California Service Center to remedy the problem and reconstruct their file. 1-949-831-8427.

[nousername]

man! i thought this was a joke at first... didn't quite get it. so i looked it up...

 

found it here:

http://www.usavisacounsel.com/article-60.htm

 

anyway, it doesn't really explain their "speed" now, since this occurred back in 2002... but i guess some some apps do take years to process.

[warpedbored]

Oh yes this story is quite famous from the black hole days. Astounding abuse of power wasn't it.

[lele]

Oh yes this story is quite famous from the black hole days.  Astounding abuse of power wasn't it.

Hmmm, I never heard of Colin Powell or Tom Ridge firing people because of this? What ever happened to the people responsible? Oh wait, sorry, it must have just been a few rouge people, although why *they* were pressured to meet such standards, naturally, was completely irrelevant to the process.

 

I feel for the people who had their lives torn apart because of this. It is the type of stories that we hear of private business or of closed societies discussing things behind closed doors, and not something that an open and representative government stands for. *yikes -- a chill goes up my spine*

[Mengxin]

I think that's what happened to my 129F that went to chicago. It made it there never heard from again. must have shredded it before they cashed the check for the application.

My 130 must have just made it through. Somebody needs to be held accountable. How can the victims get the time back? Thery can't.