§272 Citizenship and Immigration Services Ombudsman

Summary

Creates an independent Citizenship and Immigration Services Ombudsman who reports to the Deputy Secretary and must have experience in customer service and immigration law. The Ombudsman must help people and employers fix problems with USCIS, find common trouble spots, and suggest changes to fix them. The Ombudsman can hire local ombudsmen (at least one for each State), manage their staff (including firing), make rules for referring cases, keep local phone numbers published, meet with the USCIS Director about serious problems, and make sure local offices use separate phones, fax, email, and mailing addresses. Local offices must tell people they are independent and report to Congress through the Ombudsman, and local ombudsmen may choose not to share a person’s contact or information with USCIS. By June 30 each year, the Ombudsman must send the House and Senate Judiciary Committees a report on the office’s goals for the coming fiscal year and a full analysis of issues. The report must include the Ombudsman’s recommendations, a summary of the biggest problems and their nature, lists of items that have been acted on (with results), items still pending (and how long), and items with no action (how long, why, and which USCIS official is responsible). It must also include recommendations to fix problems, including backlog issues, and any other information the Ombudsman wants to add. These reports must go directly to the committees without prior changes by Department officials or OMB. The USCIS Director must give a formal response to any Ombudsman recommendation within 3 months.