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On February 9, 2022, the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services released an updated mission statement. It states, “USCIS upholds America’s promise as a nation of welcome and possibility with fairness, integrity, and respect for all we serve.” I applaud the administration for this action, and here’s why.

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This new statement contrasts with the previous administration’s mission statement, which read “U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services administers the nation’s lawful immigration system, safeguarding its integrity and promise by efficiently and fairly adjudicating requests for immigration benefits while protecting Americans, securing the homeland, and honoring our values.”

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A mission statement is like the North Star of any organization. It affirms the values it lives by and sets into motion actions and services the organization will deliver. Those values will instill an emotional connection with those the organization interacts with, whether customers from the outside or employees from within.

The previous administration instilled and projected fear. The mission statement flowed from the various draconian executive orders that many of us will never forget, including the travel ban, the series of executive actions by Donald Trump that placed severe restrictions on travel to the U.S. for citizens from a number of Muslim-majority countries. As such, we saw malevolent enhanced enforcement, undue scrutiny on applications, and unprecedented denials. While immigration lawyers like me and my clients were in a constant state of anxiety, on reflection, I can only imagine that the state of mind of many employees at USCIS might have been the same.

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I appreciate that the Biden administration didn’t just set a new mission statement independently but instead took into account the thoughts of USCIS employees, listened to them, and understood their values. In its press release, the agency informed the public that “[l]ast year, USCIS leadership empowered employees to submit words that they felt best illustrated the agency’s work. The new mission statement is a reflection of this feedback from the workforce, the priorities of the Biden Administration, and Director Jaddou’s vision for an inclusive and accessible agency.”

As a result of this team effort, I imagine a USCIS that can be more compassionate as an organization. And the people within the organization may now feel free to reflect that compassion — values they likely already uphold. All the words in the administration’s mission statement are powerful, but I want to reflect on just one here: “respect.”

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The use of the word respect elates me because it will set the tone and flow of all that we hope to see from USCIS. Merriam-Webster Thesaurus and Thesaurus.com both list respect as a synonym for love. I wrote recently about how we need more love in the world. For USCIS to perform its mission with respect is an action of love and demonstrates how organizations can show love.

I hope and expect to see positive actions. Here are my top three expectations:

Respectful adjudication of applications. Respectful adjudication should include reading all the pages we submit in our cases. When we receive requests for further evidence or RFEs, we are often baffled whether the evidence was even read. We scratch our heads wondering whether the RFE was sent to buy time or was there a genuine question about the evidence, and if so, what specifically did we not meet?

Strategic policy creation to reduce the unprecedented backlog. The backlogs that developed as a result of policies by the previous administration, as well as those from the COVID-19 shutdowns, have impacted people in unimaginable ways. Some cannot work, some are stuck outside the U.S. separated from families, and some are simply waiting in limbo for their green cards. USCIS has started to initiate some helpful policies. Examples include extending the dates that specific categories of work permits are valid, waiving interviews in certain green card applications, and establishing guidelines for certain visa categories, such as the O visa and national interest waivers, thereby making the process more efficient.

Compassionate policies that reflect human experiences. The agency has to deal with people from all walks of life — from asylum-seekers fleeing for their lives to high-skilled talented people who want to make a difference in the world. Policies on paper need to take into account what happens on the ground. Our antiquated laws set over four decades ago don’t reflect modern-day issues. But regulations and policies can be established with modern problems in mind. USCIS would be better served to call on experts in the field to help shape policies that effectuate the new mission statement.

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So, what’s in a mission statement? It’s not just a statement; it is a mission that gives us hope and direction to start building a better and more humane immigration system to ensure America will prosper in the years to come.

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Tahmina Watson is the founding attorney of Watson Immigration Law in Seattle, where she practices US immigration law focusing on business immigration. She has been blogging about immigration law since 2008 and has written numerous articles in many publications. She is the author of Legal Heroes in the Trump Era: Be Inspired. Expand Your Impact. Change the World and The Startup Visa: Key to Job Growth and Economic Prosperity in America.  She is also the founder of The Washington Immigrant Defense Network (WIDEN), which funds and facilitates legal representation in the immigration courtroom, and co-founder of Airport Lawyers, which provided critical services during the early travel bans. Tahmina is regularly quoted in the media and is the host of the podcast Tahmina Talks Immigration. She is a Puget Sound Business Journal 2020 Women of Influence honoree.  Business Insider recently named her as one of the top immigration attorneys in the U.S. that help tech startups. You can reach her by email at [email protected], connect with her on LinkedIn or follow her on Twitter at @tahminawatson.

Topics

Immigration, Small Law Firms, Tahmina Watson, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS)