Measured Progress

hen George Bohlinger assumed a top management position at the Immigration and Naturalization Service in April 1996, he was astounded to discover the agency didn't have an administration manual. But the absence of a guide to agency policies and procedures was only the first of many surprises. Employees didn't have basic tools needed to do their jobs-computers and electronic mail, for instance. Financial audits were impossible. Records were in disarray. And the workload-keeping out illegal immigrants and providing services to legal immigrants-was growing faster than the agency could manage.

And if that wasn't enough, within months the agency was roiled by scandal when Republican lawmakers charged the INS with illegally pushing through citizenship applications to boost Democrats' chances in the November elections. The subsequent investigations, which revealed violations of citizenship laws and a 90 percent error rate in application processing, brought the naturalization program to a standstill. The application backlog soared to nearly 2 million.

While management concerns mounted, Bohlinger says he felt as if he had fallen into "a hole many of us could not see the bottom of." As INS' executive associate commissioner for management, it's his job to dig the agency out of that hole. After nearly four years, he's starting to see daylight. Among the signs:

• Justice Department auditors gave INS a qualified opinion on the agency's 1999 financial statement. In previous years, bookkeeping was so poor that auditors issued a disclaimer.
• For the first time in more than a decade, INS has an up-to-date administrative manual. The manual, which also is published electronically, serves as a single repository for agency administrative policy and as a central reference for procedures.
• The agency has begun centralizing 25 million case files, previously located in 80 different locations.

"We are making measurable progress," Bohlinger says.

Call for Reform

Improving operations may not be enough, however. For years, Republican lawmakers have been working to abolish INS and replace it with two separate agencies: one for enforcement and another to provide immigrant services. Increasingly, Democrats are supporting the idea. Last year, the effort gathered momentum when the House Judiciary Committee panel on immigration passed the 1999 Immigration Reorganization and Improvement Act (HR 2528). The legislation would have split the agency's enforcement and service missions into two separate agencies at the Justice Department.

Critics long have charged that INS' dual mission creates internal conflict. INS is required to enforce immigration laws-keep illegal immigrants from entering the United States and removing them when they get in-and to administer benefits and services to legal immigrants. The two roles have created two very different cultures, which often compete for resources and priorities.

Evidence that INS cannot manage its mission is overwhelming. New immigrants sometimes wait years to have their citizenship applications processed; the backlog of people seeking naturalization is nearly 2 million. At the same time, hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants enter the United States every year-many making their way to the interior, where they are likely to escape INS attention.

At a hearing last July, the House immigration panel heard testimony from scores of congressional staffers who say they devote increasing amounts of time to helping constituents navigate the INS bureaucracy. Rep. Harold Rogers, R-Ky., a sponsor of the Immigration Reorganization and Improvement Act, says congressional staffers now spend more time on constituent problems with INS than on any other issue, including Medicare and Social Security.

The General Accounting Office and the Justice Department inspector general have repeatedly taken INS to task for poor management. Even the agency's employees, through union and professional organizations, regularly blast management.

In an audit report issued last July on INS automation initiatives, then-Justice IG Michael Bromwich criticized INS for poor management of technology programs totaling more than $2.8 billion ("Follow-Up Review: Immigration and Naturalization Service Management of Automation Programs"). "We consistently found that project information fundamental to effective project management and decision-making was not readily available. . . . Instead of easily accessible data with hard and fast figures, the repeated INS theme was that the real answers to our questions were just one more document, discussion, listing or meeting away."

Bohlinger vehemently disagrees with Bromwich's assessment: "The IG leveled a broadside at the agency that I believe was unfair and unfounded. Where the IG was correct was in his criticism of INS' way of doing development." But the bulk of INS' automation budget is going to put computers on desktops, lay cable and establish help desks. "This agency was way behind the times," he says.

In response to the IG's criticism, INS has prepared status reports on automation programs and developed plans to fix problems. "Our investment review process has matured a great deal over the last year," says David Goldberg, acting associate commissioner for information resources management.

Fixing Finances

Some of the most significant improvements have occurred in financial management. While INS still is implementing a new financial management system, Justice Department auditors gave the agency a qualified opinion on its 1999 financial statement after years of disclaimers. INS plans to hire more accountants this year to complete work required before the agency can achieve a clean audit, something it hopes to receive next year.

While the audit showed lingering problems in three major areas-accounts payable, deferred revenue and the agency's balance with Treasury-it marks a turning point in INS' ability to manage its finances. As INS moves its finance and accounting operations to the new system-completion is expected in early 2001-managers expect continued improvement.

GAO had criticized INS for investing in the new financial management system before defining its business processes, as required under the 1996 Clinger-Cohen information technology management law. In its response to GAO's criticism, agency managers said the critical need for a new system outweighed the benefits of waiting while the agency tried to reengineer processes; instead, it would reengineer as it implemented the new system.

That strategy paid off, says Bohlinger. "We had so many business practices and procedures-and in some cases no business practices and procedures-that we relied on the advice we were getting from [consulting company] Arthur Andersen, which was to go ahead and buy the system that does best what we need a financial management system to do." So INS purchased one of the five commercial financial management systems then on the General Services Administration schedule and began developing business processes to match the system.

"For me to tell you we have not had problems would be disingenuous. We have had problems and we will continue to have problems, but we feel we are moving in the right direction," Bohlinger says. The new system has for the first time allowed the agency to standardize finance and accounting procedures and centralize functions-last year financial transaction processing was consolidated in Dallas and debt management was consolidated in Burlington, Vt.

INS also improved its personal property inventory process, enabling it to meet financial statement audit requirements. By focusing limited resources on high-risk, high-value property, INS in 1998 began creating annual inventories of vehicles, firearms and other personal property purchased for more than $5,000. The inventories are reconciled and independently audited to ensure accuracy.

Uncertain Future

INS has received unprecedented resources in recent years. Since 1993, the agency's budget more than doubled-reaching $4 billion last year-and staffing increased from 19,000 to more than 31,000. Most of those resources have gone to boost the Border Patrol to stem the flow of illegal immigrants crossing the southwest border. At Congress' behest, the agency has hired about 1,000 new Border Patrol agents every year since 1995.

The agency's efforts to control the border have been largely successful where agents have been deployed in large numbers. Arrests of illegal immigrants in San Diego, once the busiest crossing point along the border, are at an 18-year low. Other hot spots where INS has deployed Border Patrol officers
en masse have seen similar results.

But even this success has brought new problems for INS. Jobs that were once dangerous and exciting now have less allure, and fewer agents are sticking around for a career with the Border Patrol. In addition, because the Border Patrol has one of the most rigorous qualification tests among federal law enforcement programs and the washout rate is high, INS has had trouble fulfilling congressional hiring mandates. GAO reported that for the three-year period ending Sept. 30, 1999, INS had a net hiring shortfall of 594 agents (GGD-00-39). As a result, says one seasoned agent, morale is low and attrition is high.

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