U.S. tackles immigrant visa backlog
by Nivedta Kowlessar
UNITED States officials, facing a fat worldwide backlog of immigrant visa applications, yesterday reported steps to deal with a troublesome affidavit of support form - the source of the pile up. Department of State representatives, Ms. Robyn Bishop and Ms. Janice Jacobs, in Georgetown for a U.S. embassy check, said moves are being made to ensure sponsors correctly fill the complicated form in the U.S. before they send it to those they intend to support. The form, introduced in December, 1997, to tighten control over who benefits from U.S. public assistance, has dramatically reversed the issuance of immigrant/permanent visas, officials told reporters at a briefing at the embassy in Kingston. Bishop, Executive Director, Consulate Affairs, said the Department of State has found a severe impact from a change in the Immigration and Nationality Act at posts worldwide. "...primarily, it (has) involved an increase in the work load for the officers adjudicating the cases because the affidavit of support form is...very complex...and requires a lot of information from the petitioner and sponsors from the United States," she explained. Bishop said if sponsors do not fill it out properly, consular officers are not able to issue visas and additional documentation is needed for processing. "So in many cases, consular officers are seeing individuals thrice before being able to make a positive determination on eligibility...", she noted. Jacobs, Director, Office of Field Support and Liaison, reported plans to provide a service through the National Visa Centre in Portsmith, New Hampshire to guide sponsors accordingly. It would include a help desk and checks of completed forms, which will be sent to overseas missions, once correct. Jacobs said a lot of "simple, technical errors" are made, but the form has to be "almost perfect" because it legally binds sponsors to petitioners. She said the new services would require extra resources and the Department is lobbying Congress for legislation to allow a fee to be charged. Though she is not sure how much, Jacobs feels the amount would be much cheaper than phone calls and trips between sponsors and petitioners. She said before the law change, visas were issued the first time applicants had an interview in about 90 per cent of cases, but now the reverse was happening. Since January 1998, about 22 embassies which issue 72 per cent of immigrant visas around the world registered 50-90 per cent increases in refusals. "We have talked to the posts, we have thought in Washington about ways we can help with this problem...we need...people...to have the form correct (for the very first time) so that we don't have to send them away to get back in touch with the sponsor because there's a problem with the affidavit of support," Jacobs said. There are also plans to hold outreaches in the U.S. to explain the law and what is required as there is still a good deal of misunderstanding about the form and why the authorities are so strict about it, she reported. During a pilot programme, three posts with the heaviest workload were selected and sent to the centre and checks revealed that only five of 500 forms were completely correct. "We think that this proves that this is something we have to do to make the immigrant visa process more friendly or less onerous for the applicants overseas and because...that information is primarily with the sponsor, we feel dealing with the sponsor in the U.S. to get the information correct is the proper way to approach this," Bishop told reporters. The form was quickly created by Immigration and Naturalisation Service in response to the related law, but now everyone recognises it is too complicated and not easily understood. Bishop said officials are sampling a draft revision with the hope of getting something more user friendly and intend to put it on the Internet. By October 1, a new version should be ready. Consul, Mr. Vincent Principe, citing Guyana's case, said last year, the local embassy issued about 1,050 immigrant visas and refused 7,200, a reversal of the previous figure of 7,500 issuances and 1,500 refusals. A test revealed 93 per cent of the forms, which some pay lawyers to fill, were not correct the first time. "...(we are) just keeping our heads above water, we just can't continue with this, the backlog is just going to grow," he observed. The Georgetown embassy, with help from a Washington official, managed to cut 2,500 cases by 500, but Principe said there was no permanent solution without the redesigning of the form. The local staff has also stopped giving appointment dates in an effort to chip the block of applications. Officials also reported tax frauds at almost every immigrant visa issuing post which cannot be easily checked and plan to start sharing information with internal revenue services. "We think that this will also speed up the processing overseas because we will very quickly be able to verify whether the information we're getting is correct," Jacobs said. Principe noted the rate is high here with roughly 36 per cent of cases involved. "That's totally too hard because (it means) we have to get the fraud rate down, then we can speed up." Jacobs and Bishop, here since Tuesday and scheduled to leave today and tomorrow, have also visited posts in Santo Domingo and Port-au-Prince and will move on to Barbados, Mexico and Suriname. They said other officers are looking at the situation in Manila and El Salvador. "(The form) has had a lot of impact on (our) workload and...and the purpose of our visit is to see (the problem) first hand and to try and work with the Bureau of Consular Affairs in the U.S to look for solutions to provide more resources to the posts so that they can handle cases more quickly," Bishop said. 
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