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Strategic Objective

Goal 3.1: Strengthen and Effectively Administer the Immigration System

Strategic Objective

Strengthen and Effectively Administer the Immigration System

Themes:

National Defense

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Overview
Progress Update

Overview

At the center of any good immigration system must be a structure able to rapidly respond to regulatory changes and the flow of demand around the world while at the same time safeguarding security. We are constantly seeking ways to better administer benefits and use technology to make information more accessible and secure.

We will pursue the following strategies to strengthen and effectively administer the immigration system:

Promote lawful immigration by uniting families, providing refuge, fostering economic opportunity, and promoting citizenship. We will also work to

Progress Update

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has determined that performance toward this goal is making satisfactory progress.

Introduction
DHS continually seeks better ways to provide accurate and useful immigration information to our customers, more effectively grant immigration and citizenship benefits, and promote an awareness and understanding of citizenship. Since any good immigration system must be able to rapidly respond to changes in demand, DHS is leveraging technology to better administer benefits and make information more accessible and secure.

Major Achievements
DHS processed over 6.7 million benefit requests, including applications for naturalization, lawful permanent residence, change of status, refugee and asylum protection, and initiatives such as deferred action for childhood arrivals through USCIS. USCIS maintained an average cycle time of 4.1 months for adjudicating all form types, narrowly missing the target of less than 4 months. USCIS also conducted 66,870 refugee interviews and admitted 69,987 refugees, which is 99.9 percent of the presidential cap and the closest the refugee program has come to reaching the cap in over 30 years. In addition, USCIS also made the correct decision in 99 percent of all approved naturalization and permanent residence applications. Furthermore, USCIS achieved an overall National Customer Service Center satisfaction rating of 86 percent. To promote lawful immigration, USCIS hosted 3,145 public engagements, reaching over 124,000 individuals. Finally, the Office of the Citizenship and Immigration Services Ombudsman took action to resolve 89 percent of case-related inquiries regarding the delivery of citizenship and immigration services within 90 days of receipt, exceeding the target of 85 percent. All statistics are as of September 30, 2014.

Major Challenges & Opportunities for Improvement
Achieving target processing times for certain form types remains a challenge primarily due to increased application receipt volumes. DHS will continue to address workload challenges by redirecting incoming cases to optimize capacity, shifting immigration services officers’ adjudication priorities so that more time is allocated to the application types with the largest volume of pending cases, and encouraging the use of overtime.

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Strategic Goals

Strategic Goal:

Mission 3: Enforce and Administer our Immigration Laws

Statement:

Enforce and Administer our Immigration Laws.

Strategic Objectives

Goal 3.1: Strengthen and Effectively Administer the Immigration System

Statement:

Strengthen and Effectively Administer the Immigration System

Description:

We will pursue the following strategies to strengthen and effectively administer the immigration system:

Promote lawful immigration by uniting families, providing refuge, fostering economic opportunity, and promoting citizenship. We will also work to better assist high-skilled immigrants, streamline the processing of immigrant visas to encourage businesses to grow in the United States, and develop innovative programs to enable immigrants to reach their potential in the United States.
Effectively administer the immigration services system by: 1) providing effective customer-oriented immigration benefit and information services at home and abroad; 2) making all information needed to make immigration decisions available to appropriate agencies electronically and in real-time, including active individual case files and biometric information; and 3) ensuring that only eligible applicants receive immigration benefits through expanded use of biometrics, a strengthening of screening processes, improvements to fraud detection, increases in legal staffing to ensure due process, and enhancements of interagency information sharing.
Promote the integration of lawful immigrants in American society by enhancing educational resources and promoting opportunities to increase understanding of U.S. civic principles and the rights, responsibilities, and importance of citizenship, and supporting comprehen-sive immigration reform that provides an earned pathway to citizenship.

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FY 14-15 Priority Goal: Enforce and administer our immigration laws through prioritized detention and removal of criminal aliens

Statement:

Enforce and administer our immigration laws through prioritized detention and removal of criminal aliens. By September 30, 2015, ICE will increase criminal alien removals, as a percentage of total removals by 5%.

Description:

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is committed to identifying, arresting, detaining, prosecuting, and removing aliens who present a danger to national security or are a risk to public safety, as well as those who otherwise undermine the integrity of our immigration laws and our border control efforts. These include, but are not limited to aliens engaged in or suspected of terrorism or espionage, violent criminals, felons and repeat offenders, and organized criminal gang members. Also critical to ICE enforcement priorities are recent illegal border crossers.

This goal is a continuation of effort began in FY12 to increase efficiencies in the process of detaining and removing illegal aliens. The focus for the next two years will be to showcase ICE’s abilities to remove criminal aliens from the United States. These efforts include identifying and apprehending at-large criminal aliens, and expanding coverage in jails and prisons in order to identify and process removable incarcerated foreign-born detainees.

ICE uses prosecutorial discretion which improves efficiencies by identifying and eliminating low priority cases clogging the immigration system. The use of prosecutorial discretion also allows ICE to prioritize the use of its enforcement personnel, detention space, and removal assets to ensure that the aliens it removes represent, as much as reasonably possible, the agency's enforcement priorities, namely the promotion of national security, border security, public safety, and the integrity of the immigration system.

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Goal 3.2: Prevent Unlawful Immigration

Statement:

Prevent Unlawful Immigration

Description:

The increased movement of people and goods across our borders provides many opportunities but also provides more places for illegal goods, unauthorized migrants, and threats to hide. Unauthorized migration is influenced by many factors, including weak rule of law and violence in sending countries. In addition, violent extremists and criminals can hide within this larger flow of migrants who intend no harm.

We will pursue the following strategies to prevent unlawful immigration:

Prevent unlawful entry, strengthen enforcement, and reduce drivers of unlawful immigration by: 1) increasing situational awareness of our borders; 2) ensuring that only those abroad who are eligible receive travel documents to the United States; and 3) identifying and removing criminal aliens, individuals who pose a threat to public safety, health, or national security, repeat immigration law violators, and other individuals prioritized for removal. We also reduce the demand for illegal immigrants by conducting inspections, audits, and investigations of employers who hire illegal immigrants and administering tools such as E-Verify to facilitate employers’ ability to hire eligible workers in compliance with immigration laws.
Arrest, detain, and remove criminals, fugitives, and other dangerous foreign nationals by leveraging federal information sharing and state, local, and federal criminal justice systems to take enforcement action based on priorities with regard to criminal aliens, and working with the Department of Justice to ensure more timely hearing of immigration cases and appeals.

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