Immigration and Naturalization Service Attempt To Automate Its Operations

Comments were provided on the progress made by the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) to automate its district offices. In a July 1979 review of INS, GAO stated that the agency had not developed an agency strategy plan to automate its operations, nor an automatic data processing (ADP) plan based on that strategy. In addition, INS had not: created a high level steering committee chaired by the Commissioner or his deputy; carefully analyzed the Houston experiment and prepared a system design concept based on these results, together with considerations of alternatives; deferred any large scale procurement until completing the system design concept; and conducted an analysis of the various lease and purchase alternatives to determine the method most favorable to the Government. After conducting further reviews in December 1979, and again in March 1980, GAO concluded that: (1) the INS mission statement was not an effective agency mission plan; (2) there is little likelihood that the long-range ADP plan will be completed by September 1980 since there is no mission plan to provide guidance; (3) INS has not analyzed the Houston Project and prepared a total system design concept based on its results; and (4) INS has made little effort to establish a high level steering committee to handle planning and problems associated with ADP. Accordingly, little progress has been made in developing effective mission and long-range ADP plans.