Winnowing Weak Applications

For the past three years, Prakash Khatri, ombudsman at the Homeland Security Department's Citizenship and Immigration Services, has advocated upfront processing of green card applications. When filing initial applications, immigrants would have to appear in person for an application review and interview.

The idea is to prevent thousands of applications that are incomplete or easy to reject from undergoing full adjudication and security checks, saving time for CIS and applicants. "There are very few things in the arsenal that actually enhance security while also enhancing customer service, and this is one of them," Khatri says. Upfront processing has been tested in pilot programs across the country.

Between May 2004 and May 2007, the Dallas Office Rapid Adjustment pilot program scheduled 33,538 appointments. More than 20 percent were no-shows; 16 percent were rejected upfront. Of 25,432 applications accepted for processing, 18,563 were approved, 949 denied, 2,844 are pending. Approximately 46 percent of accepted cases were completed within 90 days of filing. According to Khatri, 14 percent of Dallas applicants received interim benefits.

CIS determined that the Dallas program was not appropriate for expansion nationwide. Agency officials were concerned that upfront processing too closely resembled a practice called front-desking, which was deemed illegal by the Supreme Court in 1993 in the class-action lawsuit Reno v. Catholic Social Services. The practice was rejected because the now-defunct Immigration and Naturalization Service used it to reject applicants deemed ineligible early in the process, leaving little paper trail to explain why and no opportunity for appeal.