No end in sight to US immigration horrors

Washington

HEAVING under mountains of paperwork, the government has spent more than US$1 billion trying to replace its antiquated approach to managing immigration with a system of digitised records, online applications and a full suite of nearly 100 electronic forms.

A decade in, all that officials have to show for the effort is a single form that's now available for online applications and a single type of fee that immigrants pay electronically. The 94 other forms can be filed only with paper.

This project, run by US Citizenship and Immigration Services, was originally supposed to cost a half-billion dollars and be finished in 2013. Instead, it's now projected to reach up to US$3.1 billion and completed nearly four years from now, putting in jeopardy efforts to overh…