Immigration law, as immigration lawyers (and their clients) say often, is quite complex. There are a lot of hoops people have to jump though to get a benefit. Forms on top of forms asking the same things over and over. Fees on top of fees. Petitions, applications, security checks, medical exams, interviews, investigations, verifications. With all the stuff that is deemed necessary, the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of State should, one would think, want to eliminate pointless…

Aliens seeking benefits from USCIS or the immigration court need to be fingerprinted by USCIS. USCIS provides the service to aliens for the immigration court as well. The immigration judges do not have access to the fingerprint result databases, so ICE must report the results to the immigration judge. An alien in removal proceedings seeking a benefit must be printed. He must arrange it through USCIS, which then places the results in a database that ICE accesses and reports the…