The US government spends $80 billion a year on information technology, yet its immigration data remains in terrible shape, despite this investment. Some of the data is of poor quality, exists only on paper and in many instances is not synchronized with the government systems used for tracking employment and wages.
These are among the conclusions reached by a new report. It conducted a count of the number of non-immigrant US visa workers in the country, with the government’s information gathering systems criticized by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) during the course of the investigation. Daniel Costa, the director of immigration law and policy research for the EPI, called the poor tracking of US visa programs ‘scandalous’.
The report described the data as inadequate, as well as being inconsistently recorded across different federal agencies. Vital information on wages and occupations is also still being collected by US Citizenship and Immigration Services on paper forms only. It makes such data impossible to get hold of even in the event of being granted a Freedom of Information Act request, according to the report.
The Economic Policy Institute discussed the data problems in a report examining non-immigrant workers in 24 different US visa categories, including holders of H-1B, L-1, and F-1 US visas in the Optional Practical Training program. The EPI recommends that Congress passes legislation requiring regular electronic publication of data, including wages and occupations, as well as demanding greater inter-agency cooperation.