
A decade into a project to digitize U.S. immigration forms, just one is online - yanilkr
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/a-decade-into-a-project-to-digitize-us-immigration-forms-just-1-is-online/2015/11/08/f63360fc-830e-11e5-a7ca-6ab6ec20f839_story.html
======
cs702
The root problem is not government. The same thing happens in the private
sector. Large corporations routinely spend gazillions on software projects
that end up working poorly or not at all. Everyone who has worked in Corporate
America knows this all too well.

The root problem is not bureaucracy either. Companies like Amazon, Google, and
Microsoft have fairly large bureaucracies yet they routinely successfully
complete massive software projects.

The root problem is not "vested interests with complex requirements" either.
When _coders with large-scale-project experience_ were put in charge of
revamping Obamacare's healthcare.gov, they figured out how to cope with a wide
range of demands from a wide range of constituencies in an efficient manner,
and got the job done: [http://www.thewire.com/politics/2014/02/how-silicon-
valley-s...](http://www.thewire.com/politics/2014/02/how-silicon-valley-saved-
obamacare-and-obama-and-democratic-party/358593/)

The root problem, I think, is that the people who are put in charge of these
massive software projects -- typically, MBAs or lawyers by training -- often
don't know anything about how to develop software at scale. It's like asking
people who don't understand rockets to lead development of a new kind of
rocket that has never been built before.

Edit: added more detail and context to the third paragraph.

~~~
matwood
Having worked in large companies, small startups, and government, government
is orders of magnitude the worst offender when it comes to simply wasting
money and getting nothing done.

The main difference between small and large companies was it simply took
longer for people who got nothing done to be let go. In the worst cases for
companies, money stops coming in the door and cuts are forced.

Contrast the above with the government where it sometimes literally takes an
act of congress to fire someone. If the populace is unhappy with how the
government is spending its tax dollars they cannot simply stop paying taxes
and go somewhere else.

~~~
specialist
I've done corporate, startup, government (higher ed).

Another difference with government is the intractable complexity.

This plays to the difference between digitization and automation. Automation
is the removal of human judgement. It requires simplification of the rules and
processes.

My local government revamped their payroll system. The first effort tried to
digitize existing rules, and failed utterly. The second effort reworked the
payroll rules (automation), allowing them to use software closer to off the
shelf, and succeeded.

I consider the projects I worked on for higher ed to be complete failures.
Publishing course catalogs, registering for classes, auditing degrees, etc.
Conceptually simple stuff. Alas, management tried to implement every single
psychotic rule and mutant edge case for each and every stake holder,
preserving paper-based processes over 100 years old. Such fun.

My work for a telco wasn't any less nutty making. There's a reason your phone
bill is too high: bureaucracy. Their internal IT is terrible. They can't even
provide conf call services or roaming wifi to themselves. I sometimes
fantasize that Apple or Google will introduce ubiquitous flat rate service,
gut the dinosaurs, and making another gagillion dollars just thru operational
simplicity.

~~~
e12e
> Automation is the removal of human judgement. It requires simplification of
> the rules and processes.

My impression, is that government projects often go like this: 1) We want to
digitize and make some process X more efficient, 2) Oh, now that we're
_automating_ we can avoid "errors" by removing case-by-case handling (X is of
course now set up for individual evaluation by a professional bureaucrat). The
result is that not only do you get feature/scope creep (handle all the things
for all the cases, or declare failure), if you succeed, the system ends up
being much worse (it now follows outdated written documentation to the letter,
doesn't allow for any leeway).

The obvious way around this, is make a system that automates the easy 80% of
the cases. Allow the system to give good information to, the now much fewer,
bureaucrats, and allow them to handle the 20% on a case-by-case basis.

After a year, evaluate, and reduce the 20% to another 80/20.

Give up the idea that you _should_ automate policy. It's completely insane,
even if it might look good on paper.

It's like with accounting systems: you should always have a way for a clerk to
enter in and account for unforeseen things in a way that a) accommodates the
system ("-500 towels missing/destroyed") along with a comment-field to
elaborate, and to facilitate revision ("Bus crashed through the window, gave
away 500 towels for use as bandages").

------
solutionyogi
I have spent 10 years in American Immigration system (became permanent
resident 2 years ago) and it goes without saying that the immigration process
has been the most frustrating part of my stay here.

Here's something funny. In last few years, all the reputed lawyers (Murthy,
Ron Gotcher and others) have setup an online portal where you, as a client,
fill in everything online. This includes scanning various documents and
uploading them. The online portal provides a great workflow which minimizes
data entry and avoids data errors. The same portal allows you to chat with
your lawyer/paralegal if you have any questions. At the end of this process,
the lawyer firm will generate correctly filled in immigration documents which
they will print and send it to you. You sign them and send it back so that
they can forward it to USCIS! I know it's not practical or possible, but when
I was working through this portal, I wished USCIS would just buy this system
so that I don't have to pay thousands of dollars to laywers.

------
ilamont
The amount of repetitive paperwork and needless bureaucratic steps for
immigration-related matters is utterly ridiculous. The closest approximation I
can make to dealing with immigration-related paperwork is filing taxes without
the aid of software and being forced to complete and mail in one section (and
have it approved) before moving onto the next.

~~~
kawera
"The bureaucracy is expanding to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy."
\-- Oscar Wilde

~~~
eonwe
"The most familiar quotations are the most likely to be misquoted...Some have
settled down to false versions that have obscured the true ones. They have
passed over from literature into speech." \-- Carl Van Doren (maybe)

~~~
emiliobumachar
Any specifics on why the gp's quote was misguided?

------
tvanantwerp
I spoke with some USDS/18F folks a few months back, and I know they're working
with USCIS to try and remedy the failures of contracting this all out to IBM.
I'm hopeful things will get better in the next few years.

~~~
andrefrancisco
Indeed we are. Here are the latest updates on our work.
[https://18f.gsa.gov/2015/09/08/reimagining-the-
immigration-p...](https://18f.gsa.gov/2015/09/08/reimagining-the-immigration-
process/) [https://18f.gsa.gov/2015/09/21/new-citizenship-
resources/](https://18f.gsa.gov/2015/09/21/new-citizenship-resources/) And
we've got a lot more features to come. *I work at 18F.

~~~
maxcan
Creating USDS/18F may be one of the most under appreciated, impactful changes
of the Obama administration in the years and decades to come. Keep up the good
work!

------
lpsz
I've always found the biggest joke in these forms, among other federal forms,
to be the OMB "paperwork reduction" statements. [1] Even airport landing
customs cards have these.

Why these make no sense:

\- They take up a good chunk of a page and consume both paper and the reader's
time.

\- These forms aren't exactly optional, so I am going to spend time filling
them out anyway. They would be easier to fill out if they were electronic, and
if I wasn't repeating the same entries for the Nth time. The long disclosure
adds nothing to usability and is only taunting.

 _" Paperwork Reduction Act Statement: A federal agency may not conduct or
sponsor, and a person is not required to respond to, nor shall a person be
subject to a penalty for failure to comply with a collection of information
subject to the requirements of the Paperwork Reduction Act unless that
collection of information displays a current valid OMB Control Number. The OMB
Control Number for this information collection is <number> Public reporting
for this collection of information is estimated to be approximately <n>
minutes per response, including the time for reviewing instructions,
completing and reviewing the collection of information. All responses to this
collection of information are mandated by <statute>. Comments concerning the
accuracy of this burden and suggestions for reducing the burden should be
directed to the <agency> at: <addr>."_

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paperwork_Reduction_Act](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paperwork_Reduction_Act)

~~~
dpierce9
I printed a student loan form and the last page that printed contained only
the Paperwork Reduction Act notice. I have to say, it was beautifully
Orwellian.

------
cubano
It seems to me the the same effort that was applied to the HealthCare.gov
should be applied here.[1]

It is beyond...well I don't know...beyond _something_ that our federal
government proves itself time and time again so incompetent at this sort of
thing.

Yes, I understand in Washington that the political process drives everything
and that contractors have turned milking-the-cow into an art form, but certain
important issues, such as immigration reform, should (pardon me) trump this
stasis.

[1] [http://qz.com/182303/these-three-management-rules-helped-
fix...](http://qz.com/182303/these-three-management-rules-helped-fix-
healthcare-gov/)

------
ralfruns
I went through the green card process last year. From my experience, it is
nearly impossible without a lawyer.

I wonder how much of the delay can be attributed to lobbying from the
immigration lawyers that profit from the complicated, paper based process.

~~~
tvanantwerp
I remember taking my wife for her medical exam as part of her green card
process. What a joke! The doctor--who he has to select as someone on a small
approved list--was basically retired and using his position on that list as a
way to make extra money. I don't think he did a thing to examine her. He just
chatted and told us stories about when he was fighting in Korea and
accidentally stepped in a kimchi pot. Very nice fellow, but clearly just
milking the process.

~~~
dudul
Had the same experience during my visit. Some older Russian doctor who chatted
with me for 15 minutes, telling me that America was ok, that green card
medical visit were pretty much all she was doing now, 3 half-day a week and
that was plenty for her to make good money. She pocketed the $600 and gave me
the sealed envelop.

I have no problem with not passing any cost to the American taxpayers (and
even that could be debatable, yes I'm an immigrant but I've never been
unemployed and I believe I create wealth so it's a full net win for the
country), but the system is really hostile and dysfunctional.

~~~
JBlue42
Honestly, I don't care if you create wealth for this country. Having a diverse
population to interact with and bring their point of view to things is a net
benefit to the whole society instead of cultural homogeneity.

------
ilaksh
I have heard that consulting companies tend to milk government contracts. I
also believe that some people really don't like immigrants and very much want
to limit the amount that can come in any way possible.

Also, what tends to happen with a business process is that it involves many
people doing their specific part and handing it off to the next people.
Properly automating a process can involve eliminating many jobs. And since
people like to keep their jobs, the more streamlined redesigns for systems and
processes are often not really considered as they would result in too many
people being out of work.

That can be especially difficult when decisions are being made by the business
organization that wants to protect its power.

Another issue is that business processes just naturally tend to become more
and more complex over time. And its hard for people to accept that they need
to be streamlined. Because business people generally don't understand user
interface design principles and have lots of rules and laws sent down to them
from above. So all of those constraints and great ideas from the higher-ups
tend to eventually get passed on as over-complex forms and processes.

It seems likely that some of those issues may have factored into this.

------
orf
I would love it if there was even a single link to the actual report in the
article.

------
rayiner
Older article has some more context: [http://m.nextgov.com/technology-
news/2011/02/mismanagement-c...](http://m.nextgov.com/technology-
news/2011/02/mismanagement-cost-and-schedule-problems-plague-immigration-
system-upgrade/48450/)

------
simonw
"But only a fraction of applicants ever used that form before the agency took
it offline, after officials decided to abandon the initial technology and
development method and move toward a cloud-based system"

When government agencies like this talk about a "cloud-based system", what do
they actually mean?

~~~
nickodell
I assume it means that they rent hardware rather than buying a mainframe from
IBM. Remember, the project has been going on for ten years, so the hardware is
probably quite out of date.

------
jimrandomh
The most important point:

> the initial $500 million contract had been awarded to IBM

So IBM accepted a pile of money for the project and didn't get it done. The
blame lies solely on them. Sure, there were bureaucratic obstacles, and
government officials who didn't do things necessary for the project, but
that's no excuse; IBM was responsible for making it happen.

I keep hearing people talk about government inefficiency as though it were
actual government employees who were failing. But it's usually like this: a
failure of the bidding process and of accountability, where a large
corporation (it's always one of the same few) collects money for a job and
doesn't do it.

~~~
_delirium
Contracting seems to be a big part of it. The justification for contracting
these kinds of jobs out rather than just doing them in-house is that private-
sector competition through a bidding process will lower costs, ultimately
making the government more efficient. But in many cases I wonder if it
wouldn't be cheaper to just hire some in-house developers, rather than
bleeding all this money to the likes of IBM, Oracle, etc.

~~~
Symbiote
The point is totally to make it more expensive for the taxpayer, so long as
the right outsourcing companies get the contracts.

An in-house development team would know the domain, the managers would be much
closer to the business and have more authority to make day-to-day decisions.

Plus, if the developers are permanent staff, they're aware that _they_ will be
responsible for the system once it's live.

That's much better for everyone, except the politician, whose wife has shares
in IBM.

------
rconti
It boggles my mind that any organization still pays for "professional
services" provided by these massive consulting firms. Every single project
I've seen like this involves countless layers of middleware implemented by
consultants barely intelligent enough to follow a generic runbook, countless
calls "home" to deal with your "unusual environment", delays, and a creaking
disaster of a finished product.

------
yanilkr
This looks like an opportunity. There should be an app like facebook where you
enter all your data and an app store for forms. Want insurance or DMV or
immigration? download the relevant form and it tells you what's missing so you
can fill it and the app also give an updated status on your application.

~~~
viraptor
Who would you trust with that kind of information though? I don't even trust
the people I'm sending it to, much less the middleman.

------
chromaton
Is there a way technology could help here? Perhaps not by involving the US
Government directly, but would it be possible to set up a service that allows
you to enter your information online, makes sure you have everything correct
and consistent, then prints and ships the paper forms to you to sign?

~~~
ilaksh
Good idea.

Its not really any easy problem. Its about 6 million applications per year.

What we should really do is make an open source app or website (perhaps p2p,
perhaps run on donated servers) and completely eliminate any part of U.S.
Citizenship and Immigration Services related to processing applications, as
well as all of the relevant laws. The laws are too complicated, and the
bureaucracy of USCIS uses a very large budget of more than 3 billion dollars.
A short (probably 100-1000x shorter) set of streamlined replacement laws can
be designed by experienced lawyers within a few months.

We can make a contest that provides 5 million dollars for the best 3 designs
for protocols and schemas for a common data exchange system, then another 5
million for the best 3 apps that allow people to process data. This will spend
30 million. We can use 100 million to buy off the politicians or companies
that try to stop us. That should leave hundreds of millions left to donate to
poor immigrant families and/or unemployed federal workers.

The app or site can be staffed by about 200-1000 online volunteers. This will
be plenty assuming most routine applications can be processed within a few
minutes.

------
awqrre
The immigration process is a nightmare, but I thought that it was done on
purpose. It took me many years and probably hundreds of pages of documents and
forms to get my US Citizenship but I didn't use an attorney.

------
cowardlydragon
I find a major problem in very large organizations is the centralization of
processes when there is ample budget to establish competing organizations.

For example, clouds and datacenters in large orgs should have three different
groups offering competing solutions. If one (inevitably) underperforms, then
it gets axed and a new datacenter option is bootstrapped.

~~~
a_c_s
There are three main categories for the underperforming group's failure: 1\.
Structural organization issues: for example, the clients of the
underperforming datacenter group play political games that undermine the
datacenter group and prevent it from performing well 2\. Poor management
within the datacenter group itself: for example, employees forced to attend
lengthy, unproductive meetings 3\. Performance issues with the actual rank-
and-file employees

So when you decide to 'axe' the underperforming org, what does that entail?

You could redistribute everyone, but if the error is category #2 or #3, then
you saddle the higher performance groups with the causes of the problem. But
if you fire everyone and the problem category #1, now you have to hire a bunch
of new people and they are still doomed to failure.

How do you solve the problem where the organization needs to be self-aware
enough to figure out if it has a category 1, 2 or 3 dysfunction?

------
bdg
When I see stuff like this, I can't help but wonder if this is the result of
some in-fighting sabotage to delay policy change in much the same way stuxnet
slowed Iran's nuclear program. I don't know how else to explain such colossal
incompetence.

------
codecamper
Is this the same agency that not so long ago had their computer systems simply
"down"... for a week or so. It was some form of immigration or Visa granting
agency.

------
cowardlydragon
I'm guessing the fundamental problem is a lack of appreciation of talent, and
an unwillingness to pay for it.

Also... waterfall.

------
math0ne
Oddly enough my work authorization form was online last year, but its back to
paper this year!?!?

------
kchoudhu

        The Waterfall method has not been successful for 40 years
    

Right, ok.

