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

(Image credit: John Moore/Getty Images)

last updated 11 November 2015

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.

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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.