Summary

Immigration Benefits: Fifteenth Report Required by the Haitian Refugee Immigration Fairness Act of 1998

GAO-07-168R  November 9, 2006

Full Report (PDF, 5 pages)   Accessible Text   

This report responds to certain requirements of the Haitian Refugee Immigration Fairness Act (HRIFA) of 1998 that authorized certain Haitian nationals and their dependents to apply to adjust their status to lawful permanent residence. Section 902 (k) of the act requires the Comptroller General to report every 6 months on the number of Haitian nationals who have applied and been approved to adjust their status to lawful permanent residence. The reports are to contain a breakdown of the number of Haitians who applied and the number who were approved as asylum applicants, parolees, children without parents, orphaned children, or abandoned children; or as the eligible dependents of these applicants, including spouses, children, and unmarried sons or daughters. Reports are to be provided until all applications have been finally adjudicated. This is our fifteenth report. Our objectives for this report were to determine (1) the number and categories of applicants who filed applications with USCIS or EOIR and (2) the number and categories of applicants whose applications were approved by United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) or the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR).

Through September 30, 2006, USCIS, formerly part of the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), had received a total of 40,298 HRIFA applications and had approved 16,616 of these applications. EOIR had 1,947 applications filed and had approved 755 of them. Details on the categories of the applicants and approvals are provided in this report.

Subject Terms

Data integrity
Immigration
Immigration and naturalization law
Immigration information systems
Judicial remedies
Naturalization
Refugees
Reporting requirements
Resident aliens
Statistical data
EOIR Automated Nationwide System for Immigration Review
INS Computer Linked Application Information Management System