The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee is looking into the Department of Homeland Security‘s efforts to create a paperless system to manage immigration applications.Six members of the committee and its subcommittees said Thursday in a letter to DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson they want the department to provide information about its digitization project by Nov. 20.
The lawmakers wrote that DHS’ Citizenship and Immigration Services agency was expected to complete the project in 2013 at a cost of no more than $500 million.
The inquiry came after The Washington Post reported the DHS has spent more than $1 billion on the initiative over the past decade and accepts only one kind of filing fee from applicants electronically.
The House oversight committee seeks an explanation from DHS officials on why the department did not meet the project’s target deadline and the reason for the alleged increase in project costs.
