Agency Information Collection Activities: Request for Case Assistance Form, DHS Form 7001, 1601-0004

<NOTICE> DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY <DEPDOC>[Docket Number DHS-2025-0005]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Agency Information Collection Activities: Request for Case Assistance Form, DHS Form 7001, 1601-0004</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Department of Homeland Security (DHS). <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> 60-Day notice and request for comments. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The Department of Homeland Security will submit the following Information Collection Request (ICR) to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for review and clearance in accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995. </SUM> <DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Comments are encouraged and will be accepted until May 13, 2025. This process is conducted in accordance with 5 CFR 1320.1 </DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> You may submit comments, identified by docket number Docket #DHS-2025-0005, at: ○ <E T="03">Federal eRulemaking Portal:</E> <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov.</E> Please follow the instructions for submitting comments. <E T="03">Instructions:</E> All submissions received must include the agency name and docket number Docket #DHS-2025-0005. All comments received will be posted without change to <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov,</E> including any personal information provided. <E T="03">Docket:</E> For access to the docket to read background documents or comments received, go to <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov.</E> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> The Office of the Citizenship and Immigration Services Ombudsman (CIS Ombudsman) was created under section 452 of the Homeland Security Act of 2002 (Pub. L. 107-296) to: (1) assist individuals and employers in resolving problems with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS); (2) to identify areas in which individuals and employers have problems in dealing with USCIS; and (3) to the extent possible, propose changes in the administrative practices of USCIS to mitigate problems. This form is used by individuals and employers who are experiencing problems with USCIS during the processing of immigration benefits. Authorities that support this information collection include: • Section 452 of the Homeland Security Act provides the legal authority for the CIS Ombudsman. The information is collected on the DHS Form 7001, Case Assistance Request, which is available electronically or via pdf on the CIS Ombudsman website. Individuals and employers (or their legal representatives) experiencing problems with USCIS may submit a DHS Form 7001. The information contained on the form allows the CIS Ombudsman to identify the problem encountered by individuals and employers seeking immigration benefits and inquire with USCIS to resolve the issue. In the past, this information has been used to understand the issue the customer is trying to resolve, to obtain information needed to research USCIS systems, and to relay USCIS communications to the customer. This information has been collected on the electronic or paper DHS Form 7001 for over a decade. The electronic version is automatically integrated into the CIS Ombudsman's Case Assistance Analytics and Data Integration (CAADI) case management system; paper versions received by email, mail or fax are ingested manually and saved electronically in the case management system. (a) Proposed form enhancements: To enhance the form's usability: • Limit each request to one immigration issue. • Remove questions customers did not historically answer correctly. • Enhance the instructions in each form section. • Re-order form sections (see below) to reflect the customer's perspective. The revised form will include these re-ordered, merged, and re-named sections. Delete former Section 4, Form Type. <FP SOURCE="FP-2">1. Move Section 10 to 1: Person Completing the Form</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">a. Ask who is completing the form upfront so that attorneys can enter their information first and upload the required Form G-28 in Section 9.</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">2. Move Sections 5 & 6 to 2: Name of Applicant or Petitioner & Contact Information</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">3. Rename Section 3: Application or Petition Filed with USCIS</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">4. Move Section 7 to 4 and rename: Biographical Information for Applicant or Petitioner</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">5. Delete old Section 4</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">6. Move Section 11 to 5: Beneficiary Information</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">a. Expanded to include more than just employment-based petitions</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">7. Move Section 2 to 6: Reason for Requesting Case Assistance</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">a. Now limited to one reason/issue</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">8. Merge Sections 1A & B, Actions Taken with USCIS and move to Section 7</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">9. Section 8: Supporting Documentation</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">a. Now cross-referenced with new Section 1.</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">10. Move Section 12 to 9: How Did You Learn About Our Case Assistance Services?</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">11. Merge Sections 9 and 10 into new Section 10: Consent</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">a. A new single consent section with a pop-up signature based on role, to include third parties.</FP> The CIS Ombudsman collects and processes requests for case assistance, the majority of which are submitted electronically through the DHS website. This form provides the most efficient means for collecting and processing the required data. The electronic form feeds the information collected directly into CAADI. Per Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA) requirements, a fillable PDF version is also available on the website and may be emailed or printed and mailed or faxed to the CIS Ombudsman. The information on the paper forms are manually entered and then scanned into the CAADI system and then destroyed. Using the paper method may result in delays due to mail delivery and intake processing. Once approved, the online and PDF versions of the new form will be posted on the CIS Ombudsman's website at <E T="03">https://www.dhs.gov/case-assistance.</E> The paper form remains available because some individuals are unable to access or lack the skill to use the electronic version of the DHS Form 7001. The CIS Ombudsman has enhanced completion of the DHS Form 7001 on mobile devices to further reduce paper use. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Burden Reduction Initiatives in 2024</HD> (a) See Section 2 for proposed form enhancements. (b) New Format for Hard Copy Version: Once the renewed form is approved, the CIS Ombudsman will roll out a redesigned and updated hard copy version of the form in PDF format for both ease of use and compliance with the 21st Century Integrated Digital Experience Act. (c) New Foreign Language Capabilities: The form must be submitted in English, but it will be translated into the following five most frequently requested languages to make it easier for immigrants from these countries to complete the form and instructions. The CIS Ombudsman also initiated translation and interpretation services for customers with limited English proficiency in October 2024. (d) New Online Portal: The CIS Ombudsman launched a new web portal to provide better customer service while also saving staff time. Currently, customers who have submitted the Form 7001 call or email the CIS Ombudsman to check their case status, and where applicable, the CIS Ombudsman emails customers to request additional documents needed to process the request. The new web portal provides customers with an online self-service tool, enabling staff to focus on more complex customer inquiries. Customers can access the new web portal via a link on the online Form 7001 web page. The web portal then shares data with CAADI to provide two functions: (1) the Online Case Status Check functionality allows individuals and employers to check the current status of their case online; and (2) the Online Document Upload functionality allows individuals and employers to submit additional documentation for a previously submitted case. Users now have the ability to upload on-demand as well as in response to email requests initiated by the CIS Ombudsman. Case assistance request number and email address are required for submission, and a confirmation email is sent after document upload is successful. Customers do not have to create an account or login but are required to provide their case assistance request number, which was provided in their submission confirmation email, and their email address. The email address is needed to verify the identity of the requestor. a. <E T="03">What's new in 2024 for the customer:</E> b. Before you submit: You will see a simpler, cleaner online DHS Form 7001, Request for Case Assistance page with an easy link to our Tips for Submitting a Case Assistance Request. i. The tips address specific situations like signing on behalf of clients and requests involving multiple form types or family members. c. While you complete the form: Instead of a series of accordion sections, you will see an interactive form with these new features: i. A progress bar to help you see how much of the form you have completed. ii. Sections that adapt the questions based on your answers to help you know what fields to complete. iii. Alerts in each section that tell you if you are missing information. iv. A clearer view of the forms and/or beneficiaries you have already added. v. A screen for reviewing and editing your answers before submitting. vi. Your CIS Ombudsman Request Number appearing on the confirmation page after you submit the form. d. After you submit: Use these two new features: i. Upload Requested Documents <E T="03">(after submitting your request)</E> : If you experience problems uploading documents when you submit DHS Form 7001 or if you need to add more documents afterwards, you can use this tab to upload docume ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 21k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━