The US Immigration and Customs Websites

Read this on MSNBC (thanks Ravi): The Indian couple flew for more than 20 hours to see their children and grandchildren in Orange County, arriving Sunday night - Mother's Day.The visit lasted 45 minutes. Then they were gone - escorted after a brief reunion with their shocked relatives in a departure lounge at Los Angeles International Airport by U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents to a plane bound for India, 24 hours after their arrival in the U.S. The cause: a dispute over paperwork. (sic)[Link on MSNBC]

The case comes one week after the Government Accountability Office issued testimony that stated immigration agencies such as Customs and Border Protection face significant management challenges, including establishing "accurate and timely" computer systems.

But immigration-rights advocates said such scrutiny - including detention of the Venkatratnams - might be based on inaccurate computer data.

Immigration-rights groups said the Venkatratnams' paperwork could be missing for reasons as simple as a spelling or typographical error.

Human error or bad usability? Both I guess. The reason why the old couple were thrown out of USA by the immigration officials was because the victims were not able to show proof that they obeyed all immigration laws when they had extended their stay during their last visit. They did not retain the I-94 counterfoil. Of course, the computer could not verify the visitors' data. Take a look at the CBP website and the USCIS website and tell me if the sites 1) afford usable information retrieval (Search for example), and 2) If a non-US user can understand the purpose and scope of the sites.

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