DOJ audit of premium processing

In February 2003, the Audit Division of the Office of the Inspector General completed an audit of the INS (BCIS¹) premium processing program. Premium Processing was established in June 2001 to allow for the payment of additional fees to guarantee adjudication of certain employment based petitions within a 15 day period. According to the goals of the program, the additional fees ($1000 per filing) generated by premium processing were to be used to hire additional adjudicators, contact representatives and clerical staff to provide services to all customers, under premium or regular processing. Currently, only the nonimmigrant Form I-129 (e.g. for L-1, H-1B, O-1 and TN petitions) can be filed under premium processing.

The goal of the audit was to determine how well the INS was achieving the goal of expedited processing for the limited impacted petitions; the impact on all other adjudications; and the impact on premium processing of implementation of IBIS (Interagency Border Security System) security check procedures on the adjudication process.

The conclusions in this 90 page audit report are not surprising. Premium Processing has adversely impacted the processing of all other adjudications. Consequently, more employers are filing or upgrading cases to Premium Processing due to processing delays in the regular queues. The mandate to adjudicate Premium Processing Cases within 15 days has contributed to the staggering backlog on regular processed cases-with the backlog steadily increasing through the second quarter of FY02 and reaching 3.2 million cases in September 2002. Thus, the goal that Premium Processing would eventually help to eliminate the backlogs in all adjudications by adding more staffing resources is simply not being met. Please note that Premium Processing was intended to be a "short term" program that would eventually phase itself out as processing times for all adjudications would be decreased. Based on the increased backlogs for regular cases, it appears that this goal will not be reached by expanding premium processing.

The auditors also found that the INS Service Centers failed to implement the IBIS checks in a timely manner and that over 11,000 Premium Processing cases were adjudicated without IBIS checks between January 28 and March 18, 2002. The INS is unable to determine whether high-risk individuals were granted nonimmigrant visa petitions during this period because the IBIS checks were not completed.

Premium Processing case load reports are not separated from other case loads and therefore the INS cannot determine exactly how much staffing and resources are used by this program. As such, INS cannot determine if the $1000 fee actually pays for the processing, nor can they determine if staffing and resources are appropriately assigned to processing lines. The audit specifically states that the lack of management oversight has led to many of the problems and the lack of determination as to the viability of Premium Processing on all adjudications.

Based on the audit's summaries and recommendations and based on our experience with Premium Processing, the program is not living up to expectations or goals. More and more employers are finding themselves forced to process cases under Premium Processing due to the adjudication backlogs found in the regular processing. Furthermore, in those cases where premium processing is not available (family, permanent residency, etc.) we have seen marked delays in processing. It will be interesting to see how BCIS, as it incorporates the INS systems, follows through with the recommendations of the audit report.

[1] With the new Department of Homeland Security, the Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services (BCIS) has taken over the service functions of the INS. This audit analyzed INS functions which are now under the auspices of the BCIS.