Immigration agency spends 10 years, $1 billion to digitize 1 form


Ten years ago, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) planned to spend $500 million to convert about 100 immigration forms for online use. To date, the agency has spent double its original estimate and successfully digitized a grand total of one form.
A couple years ago, USCIS did have two other forms online, which are no longer in use. One was pulled after only 80 people chose it over the paper option preferred by thousands. The currently functional form (singular) allows people to renew or replace their green cards, but users report lengthy wait times and lost applications.
The agency says that given another four years and $2 billion it can digitize the remaining 94 forms. And maybe that will totally work, but could someone just tell them about Wufoo?
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.
-
Garsington Opera opens its summer festival with two 'very different productions'
The Week Recommends A 'fabulous' new staging of Tchaikovsky's The Queen of Spades and Donizetti's fake-love-potion comedy L'elisir d'amore
-
The Rehearsal series two: Nathan Fielder's docu-comedy is 'laugh-out-loud funny'
The Week Recommends Television's 'great illusionist' has turned his attention to commercial airline safety
-
The Ballad of Wallis Island: bittersweet British comedy is a 'delight'
The Week Recommends A reclusive millionaire lures his favourite folk duo to an island for an 'awkward reunion'
-
Elon Musk slams Trump's 'pork-filled' signature bill
speed read 'Shame on those who voted for it: you know you did wrong,' Musk posted on X
-
Depleted FEMA struggling as hurricane season begins
speed read FEMA has lost a third of its workforce amid DOGE cuts enforced by President Donald Trump
-
White House tackles fake citations in MAHA report
speed read A federal government public health report spearheaded by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was rife with false citations
-
Judge blocks push to bar Harvard foreign students
speed read Judge Allison Burroughs sided with Harvard against the Trump administration's attempt to block the admittance of international students
-
Trump's trade war whipsawed by court rulings
Speed Read A series of court rulings over Trump's tariffs renders the future of US trade policy uncertain
-
Elon Musk departs Trump administration
speed read The former DOGE head says he is ending his government work to spend more time on his companies
-
Trump taps ex-personal lawyer for appeals court
speed read The president has nominated Emil Bove, his former criminal defense lawyer, to be a federal judge
-
US trade court nullifies Trump's biggest tariffs
speed read The US Court of International Trade says Trump exceeded his authority in imposing global tariffs