Immigration Statistics A Story of Neglect (1985) / Chapter Skim
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4 The Immigration and Naturalization Service
4 The Immigration and Naturalization Service
Pages 35-73
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From page 35... ...
Because of the INS's central role in administering the flow of international migration to the United States, its statistical activities were examined in considerably more detail than were those of the other federal agencies involved in collecting immigration data. The INS is charged with the administration of the Immigration and Nationality Act as well as of other federal statutes concerning the status of aliens in the United States and of the process of naturalization.
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From page 37... ...
at the INS during the past few years provides the opportunity for a rapid improvement in its statistical capabilities in meeting both its own information needs and the demands for data by external users. Consequently, this chapter includes a review of the development of automated data processing, a description of the ADP plans that are being
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From page 38... ...
bTransition quarter July 1 - September 30, 1976. Source: INS Annual Reports, 1966-1981.
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From page 39... ...
In fiscal 1981, a total of 596,600 people were recorded in this group, with adjustments representing about one-third of the total, primarily because of refugees who adjust to permanent resident status. The data on immigrants admitted for permanent residence are the most widely accessible of the INS data sets, both as published in the annual statistical yearbook and as available on tape in the form of public-use micro record samples.
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From page 40... ...
The 1981 Statistical Yearbook contains only three tables presenting data for refugees: refugees granted lawful permanent resident status; authorized
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From page 41... ...
citizens, permanent resident aliens, and those nonresident aliens entering the United States for periods of no more than six months (from Canada) or 72 hours (from Mexico)
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From page 42... ...
The major categories of aliens with A-numbers and for whom documentation is maintained, of course, consist of permanent resident aliens, naturalized citizens, refugees, asylees, and parolees. Alien files are physically maintained in the records section of the district offices of the INS; inactive files are retired to federal records centers.
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From page 43... ...
Aliens entering as permanent residents present their immigrant visas and supporting documentation to inspectors. Nonimmigrant aliens arriving by international air and sea carriers present arrival forms (form I-94)
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From page 44... ...
The larger Canadian border points, and almost all the Mexican border points, estimate the numbers of total passengers by applying an average occupancy figure to the car count. The number of citizens and of aliens is then estimated by applying citizen/alien ratios to the estimate of total passengers.
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From page 45... ...
Our review of methods used by the INS to estimate the number of border crossings raises serious doubts about the accuracy of the numbers by port and by citizen/alien designation, which are published annually in the INS statistical yearbook, as well as about the accuracy for some ports of the figures laboriously compiled on the G-23 each month and in the G-540-542 report every six months. The importance of these numbers to the agency managers must also be doubtful, given the difficulty of locating reports for some ports, and the fairly obvious deficiencies, including simple arithmetic errors, in some G-23 returns.
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From page 46... ...
46 to A U
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From page 48... ...
However, the program is administered and services are provided in different parts of the examinations sections: for example, personnel in adjudications are concerned with aliens applying for political asylum; immigration inspectors are responsible for processing the requests of refugees for admission as legal permanent residents as well as for paroling aliens into the country; INS officers overseas collect data on individual aliens applying for refugee status. Aggregate data on refugee admissions are submitted monthly on a special supplement to the G-23 report by the ports officially designated to process refugees.
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From page 49... ...
Published tables do not include information on the characteristics of refugees at the time of entry nor on the population of aliens in the United States seeking or granted asylum. The implementation of automated case tracking systems is expected to increase the availability and the accessibility of statistical information concerning the entry of refugees and persons seeking political asylum in the United States.
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From page 50... ...
More emphasis on, and minor changes to, form I-213 would make such additional data collection exercises unnecessary. The INS statistical yearbook includes a few summary tables on the activities of the Border Patrol and on characteristics of deportable aliens located.
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From page 51... ...
Tables in the INS statistical yearbook are based on the G-23 reports and refer to the activities of district offices, covering Reportable aliens located by nationality, by length of time in the United States, and by employment status. Trial Attorneys Immigration trial attorneys, located in the office of the General Counsel (Figure 4-1)
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From page 52... ...
Investigations units submit a consolidated report on the employment characteristics of deportable aliens located, their wage levels cross-classified with sector of employment, and the number of deportable aliens receiving public assistance. The G-23 report is the source of investigations data published in the statistical yearbook.
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From page 53... ...
The INS started to automate its recordkeeping in the 1970s as the workload increased and significant backlogs began to develop; the decade was characterized by rather uncoordinated development of automated systems to handle the most pressing current problems. A study (Immigration and Naturalization Service, 1981:executive summary)
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From page 54... ...
Problems with MIRAC cited during panel visits to district offices include Slow response time, inadequate numbers of terminals, and excessive restrictions on district office personnel in updating records. The extent of omission of alien files from the master index is unknown, but one official estimated that up to 30 percent of the files that should be in the system are either missing or have been entered incorrectly.
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From page 55... ...
In fact, the primary source of nonimmigrant data was the Statistical Analysis Branch, which independently produced data through manual processing of the basic forms. The process of collecting information on nonimmigrants is described more fully in the discussion of the new nonimmigrant information system that replaced NIDC in January 1983.
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From page 56... ...
The INS mission plan (Immigration and Naturalization Service, 1980a) states the major responsibilities of the agency and describes 81 specific strategies for achieving its goals.
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From page 57... ...
The long-range plan calls for the data bases to be linked to a central index that is scheduled to replace the master index in mid-1985. In-terms of implementation, development of the central index is nearing completion, the nonimmigrant information system and the immigrant data capture system are operational, and the two interim case tracking systems described above are being revised to conform to the specifications of the long-range plan.
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From page 58... ...
Statistical information is expected to be available for reporting and management purposes. The central index is being created by merging data from the master index, the nonimmigrant information system (see below)
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From page 59... ...
Prior to the establishment of IMDAC, immigrant visas and adjustment of status forms were processed separately by each of these three organizations. In addition to eliminating the duplication in coding and processing visas, the system creates the A-files that are sent to the appropriate INS district offices.
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From page 60... ...
The failures of the Statistical Analysis Branch also can be traced to the extremely inadequate size of its professional staff: even when fully staffed, with only nine professional positions, it is surprising and to their credit that so many of their tasks are carried out. About half of the 30 staff members have responsibilities related to statistics from the work measurement (G-23)
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From page 61... ...
The work of the Statistical Analysis Branch has experienced at least two major setbacks in the last five years. The first of these was the complete loss of statistics for nonimmigrants for the period July 1979 to September 1980.
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From page 62... ...
Branch Publications INS Statistical Yearbook Delay in publishing the agency's statistics has increased considerably in recent years. The narrative section of the 1978 Annual Report was published without its statistical component, approximately 100 pages of statistical tabulations, because the statistical tables were not ready in time.
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From page 63... ...
, For 1980 there was a 3-year lag between the collection of statistics and their publication, which was reduced to 2 1/2 years for the 1981 data. How can the Statistical Yearbook of the Immigration and Naturalization Service be improved?
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From page 64... ...
The present published tables of the INS statistical yearbook are formatted (and correctly so) to reflect U.S.
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From page 65... ...
Such a program may require additional resources, but would be beneficial to the INS as well as to other users of immigration data. Statistics on the Resident Alien Population Since the annual Alien Address Registration Program was discontinued in 1981, the INS has been unable to estimate the size of the alien population residing in the United States or in local areas of the country.
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From page 66... ...
recommendations for collecting data on international migration and provide the commissioner with independent expertise on the quality of the INS statistical program and on user needs. Evaluation of INS Statistics Evaluation of data quality should have a high priority throughout the INS.
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From page 67... ...
Congress, 1984~; the following excerpts highlight the frustration: The Committee amendment for the first time provides statutory language requiring the collection, preparation and distribution of information and data on the number and characteristics of immigrant and nonimmigrant aliens entering and departing the United States. The Committee is deeply concerned about the unavailability of accurate and current statistical information on immigration matters.
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From page 68... ...
97-116. Additionally, the Committee recently had to make a special request to the General Accounting Office for a study on the use of H and L nonimmigrant visas [for temporary workers and intracompany transferees]
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From page 69... ...
The likely financial and personnel costs of these recommendations that cannot reasonably be absorbed within existing budgets are discussed following the recommendations. The panel recommends that Congress: o Strongly affirm the importance of reliable, accurate, and timely statistical information on immigration to the needs of the Congress and direct the Attorney General to reexamine the organizational structure of the Immigration and Naturalization Service as it relates to statistics, with a view to placing greater priority on this important task and o Require that the Attorney General prepare and submit by June 30 each year an annual report to the President and the Congress, presenting data on aliens admitted or excluded, naturalizations, asylees, and refugees, describing their characteristics, and containing an analysis of significant developments during the preceding year in the field of immigration and emigration.
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From page 70... ...
This research, which may be either extramural or intramural, should be focused on the evaluation of data production and data quality;
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From page 71... ...
: o Ensure that OM8 exercise its responsibilities to monitor and review statistical activities and budgets concerning statistics on immigration and emigration, and particularly those of the INS, to minimize duplication and ensure that appropriate procedures are used, standards met, and priorities observed in the collection, production, and publication of such data; o Require continuing interagency coordination in the field of immigration data; participate in discussions designed to achieve consistency and comparability in concepts and definitions used by the individual organizations in the collection of such information; and oversee the introduction and use of standardized approaches; and 0 Actively encourage and support the timely publication and dissemination of immigration data and the ready availability of fully documented public-use data tapes, including samples of individual records (with identifiers removed) where feasible, and data summaries.
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From page 72... ...
Unpublished paper presented at the annual meeting of the Population Association of America, Washington, D.C. Immigration and Naturalization Service 1980a INS Mission Plan, INS Planning Task Force, Robert A
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From page 73... ...
S Immigration and Naturalization Service.
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