90,000 documents
destroyed at INS



IF you or your relative have submitted any petition or application with the defunct Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) -- now taken over by the Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services (BCIS) -- and you had been worrying about the fact that you have not heard anything from either of the agencies, worry some more.

Sometime the end of January this year, firms contracted by the INS at the Western Service Center were indicted for destroying 90,000 documents at the California Service Center in 2002. The shredding wasn't undertaken by INS federal officers, but rather by private contractors -- private company employees who, under contract with the federal government, carry out the mail room operations, which include receiving and acknowledging petitions and applications as well as sending out the approval notices and transmitting approved petitions to the National Visa Center.

Based on published accounts and court records, the manager of the Western Service Center mail room one Dawn Randall, 24 years old was indicted at the end of January by a federal grand jury, along with a supervisor who worked under her, Leonel Salazar, 34 years of age. Both were accused of ordering low-level employees to destroy thousands of documents beginning in February of 2002 and several months after. The reason: to reduce a growing backlog of unprocessed paperwork that the Western Service Center was facing.

According to the indictment, Ms. Randall ordered her subordinates at the INS to count the number of unprocessed papers in the filing center. They indicated to her that about 90,000 documents were waiting to be handled. According to the report, she ordered at least five night shift workers to begin shredding many boxes of these papers. By the end of March, no backlog existed. Problem solved. Ms. Randall continued the shredding orders. Without any backlogs, the INS supervisors were happy, except for those who filed petitions and applications who had been waiting and wondering why they have not received any word from the INS.

The essential question is, what type of documents were destroyed forever? Since some applicants submit original documents, it is likely that the following original documents establishing the petitioner‚s eligibility to file the petition and documents establishing the relationship between the petitioner and the beneficiaries are gone for good:

US passports
Foreign passports
Asylum applications
I-140 petitions
I-129 petitions
Employment authorization requests
Original birth certificates
Advanced parole requests
Applications for US citizenship

The scariest part is that the INS has no clue what was happening.

Federal contractors

Because the government believes that private corporations are more efficient in doing the work (both in terms of cost and efficiency standpoints) the INS -- and other government agencies -- give lucrative contracts to private firms. JHM Research got the INS contract for 325 million dollars.

According to the New York Times, the company in charge of servicing not just the Western Service Center but all four INS Service Centers is called JHM Research and Development, a Maryland corporation, owned by its president, a certain John H. Macklin. Mr. Macklin suddenly became unavailable for comments.

Based on company info posted on their website, was incorporated in 1987 under the laws of the district corporation. The self-described company profile includes the following statement:

"The company is a wholly owned and operated minority enterprise certified by the Minority Business Opportunity Commission of the Small Business Administration (SBA) and the State of Maryland."

Other US government agency clients of JHM includes:

US Department of Health and Human Services
Food and Drug Administration
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms
National Institutes of Health

This does not include "new contract awards" according to the company website with National Institutes of Health (two contracts), Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (three contracts), and a host of prior contracts including the FBI, USDA, NOAH, US Air Force, US Department of Commerce, and others.

The Los Angeles Times, identified the two JHM subcontractors as:

Datatrac Information Services, a Texas-based corporation
SEI Technology Inc., a Virginia-based company

Datatrac is in itself a minority/women contractor: actually named the leading diversity-owned business in Texas, (actually #4), appearing as #40 on the national list. Datatrac was also named "#1 on the top women-owned businesses" list in Federal Computer Week which identifies the top 25 revenue producers among women-owned IT businesses in the federal government. Datatrac President and COO Cathi Yeager appeared in the September 16 issue of the magazine. As for SIE Technology, it seems they have gone stealth, undetected by inquiring radar from immigration practitioners and people whose petitions and applications were destroyed.

The INS or the new bureau that took over its functions, the Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services (BCIS) have not been that helpful either in determining what petitioners and applicants could do, other than ask them to send duplicate petitions and applications if they believe that their cases were part of the 90,000 documents destroyed.

For those who sent original documents -- passports, citizenship certificates, certificates of marriage and birth -- it will take more months of agonizing wait. And that is if the INS or BCIS will acknowledge that the petition or application was indeed part of the destroyed documents.

The problem is, if the BCIS does not know what were destroyed, the agency cannot verify or confirm what petitions and applications are to be given consideration.

Crispin R. Aranda is a US-based immigrant specialist and executive director of the Immigrant Visa Center in Quezon City -- tel. nos. +632 411-0806, +632 414-2655 and +632 373-6799. He may be reached at usvisacenter@yahoo.com or legal@visacenter.org or in San Francisco, CA through +415 834-1052.