Immigration Management

Strong Leadership and Management Reforms Needed to Address Serious Problems Gao ID: GGD-91-28 January 23, 1991

GAO conducted a general management review of the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) to assess its overall role and performance and identify ways to meet the challenges it faces while experiencing unprecedented growth and change.

GAO found that INS management: (1) was constrained by such environmental factors as the diversity of its mission, unpredictable and changing world conditions, negative perceptions of its abilities, and difficulty in coordinating its work with various agencies and outside interest groups; (2) failed to provide effective leadership, resulting in the development of a group of autonomous, segmented programs; (3) failed to address critical strategic issues facing its enforcement mission and did not delineate responsibilities among the various programs, resulting in program overlaps, inconsistent implementation, and ineffective personnel use; (4) failed to address the increase in convicted aliens and unauthorized aliens in its detention program, resulting in inadequate and understaffed facilities; (5) lacked an overall enforcement strategy to integrate interrelated programs, clearly delineate responsibilities, determine appropriate staff for those responsibilities, and assess detention needs; (6) failed to fully utilize new revenue sources to improve service delivery problems and alleviate substantial delays in adjudication processing; (7) failed to resolve problems involving delays at land border crossings and excessive overtime costs within its inspection program; (8) had a chaotic approach toward budget development and weak controls over revenue and expenditures; and (9) had a decentralized organizational structure that increased geographic fragmentation of program operations. GAO also found that the INS Commissioner, in early 1990, centralized budget control and personnel functions and developed a reorganization proposal, but failed to provide stronger accountability systems or adequately address serious geographic and program fragmentation in its enforcement program.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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