Where Do Billions Of U.S. Immigration Service Funds Go?

Given the nationwide tension behind immigration reform, many people may not agree with this statement, but it is time for budget cuts within the U.S. Immigration Services sector.

On June 22, the AP broke what should be a significant story to very little attention; most media outlets simply reprinted the brief report. “CSC gets $25M gov't records task order,” read the headline. The $25 million order allows CSC to perform scanning, indexing, and records management for the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). Good for them right? Well not really. Further investigation shows that CSC — Computer Sciences Corporation — has a long history of “winning” government contracts. Yet the disastrous state of the immigration system suggests that we're not getting what we pay for.

According to the company timeline, starting in May of 1961 with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory contract, CSC has won billions in government contracts, including services for every U.S. Armed Forces division, NASA, the IRS, and major airports; Medi-Cal and Medicare claims processing; and even processing claims when natural disasters strike. In cases where CSC has not won the contracts, CSC often buys the companies that do, like DynCorp, which they acquired in March of 2003.

Through DynCorp, CSC was able to profit from a $50 million contract to support law enforcement functions in Iraq and a $200 million contract extension from the U.S. Postal services. With every awarded contract, CSC’s goal is eerily similar: to modernize the respected agencies technology capabilities with innovative concepts such as outsourcing so they can focus on their tasks. So what, this is America and we reward innovation, right? And what does it have to do with immigration reform?

What happened to rewarding competition? CSC has long had been profiting from contracts with divisions of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and USCIS.

In May 2009, CSC “won” $27 million for record digitization from USCIS. Before that, Datatrac Information Systems Inc., was awarded a $150 million contract in 2006 for the same services; CSC acquired Datatrac in December 2006. CSC also “won” $53 million in October 2007, for among other things, “modernizing” the operational technology requirements associated with the REAL ID Act of 2005 and legislation mandating the use of E-Verify. In November 2007, they “won” a $34 million contract to assist with immigration’s customer service center. That is $289 million in less than three years!

One need only add their press releases for 2010 to realize that not counting immigration services, CSC has “won” over $717 million in government contracts this year alone. And that excludes the $2.8 billion opportunity for a visa application contract. I wonder if they’ll win?

Yet despite all of this “modernization,” “outsourcing,” and “innovation integration,” any immigration attorney will tell you that the U.S. Immigration system is a horrendous backlog of expired visas and citizenship requests. Meanwhile, CSC keeps “winning” in the form of revenue, without offering great results.

CSC’s most recent reported revenue for the fiscal year ending in April 2010 was $16.1 billion. Our elected officials like to preach about pork barrel spending, yet, amid a campaign season, not one is inquiring about the excessively large funds currently allocated towards Immigration Services. Is this really the best use for taxpayer money? Has our immigration system improved with the help of CSC?

Watch CSC North American Public Sector promo here .