Case Study 12: From Immigration Benefits, GAO-12-66, November 22, 2011

Each year, DHS’s U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) handles millions of paper applications for immigration benefits. In 2005, USCIS embarked on a major multiyear program meant to transform its paper process to one that would incorporate electronic application filing, adjudication, and case management. In 2007, we reported that USCIS planned, in the early stages of the program, to partially or fully meet best practices. In 2008, USCIS contracted with a solutions architect to help develop the new program.

We reviewed DHS’s acquisition management policies and guidance; analyzed transformation program planning and implementation documents, such as operational requirements; compared schedule and cost information with our guidance for best practices; and interviewed USCIS officials. We found that USCIS was continuing to manage the program without specific acquisition management controls, such as reliable schedules, that would have detailed work to be performed by both the government and its contractor over the expected life of the program. As a result, USCIS did not have reasonable assurance that it could meet its future milestones. In particular, although USCIS had established schedules for the first release of the transformation program, our analysis showed that these schedules were unreliable because they did not meet best practices for schedule estimating.