African Immigrants User Experience with USCIS.gov: A Critical Analysis of a Government-Issued Website Related to Immigration

Federal e-government services are increasingly replacing traditional methods of interaction in providing immigrants access to information often vital to their immigration processes. As the nature of these services evolve to online systems, immigrants are confronted with navigating them. In this study, we examined the usability and efficacy of the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services website (USCIS.gov) through 28 semi-structured interviews with documented African immigrants, representing 7 countries and varying legal status classifications, such as permanent resident or citizen. Our findings describe common experiences, perceptions and difficulties navigating the U.S. Government’s online platform; contributing factors include inadequate virtual assistance from Emma - USCIS’s computer-generated chatbot, delayed or inconsistent system alerts about case status, and limited website navigation design for visually impaired users, leading to feelings of anxiety while waiting for pending filings. To conceptualize this unique interaction between immigrants and technology, we propose a “digital border wall”, the virtual space where an immigrant encounters the host country and directly accesses its systems, tools, and policies. As the employment of online immigration services by governing entities increase, so should research into the critical challenges they may impose on an already strained U.S. immigration system.