Kansas City is home to nationwide processing of immigration documents

Attendees at the Dec. 9 congressional meeting pose for a photo at the Lee's Summit Card Production Facility. Pictured are: USCIS Site Manager Joe Dunning II, GSA Senior Advisor Judy Dungan, GSA Division Director Barbara Jo Schmitt-Cole, GSA Branch Chief Matt Helmering, Chelsea Chaney, Office of U.S. Senator for Kansas Pat Roberts, Haydin Brady, Office of U.S. Rep for the 5th District of Missouri Emanuel Cleaver, Whitney Temple, Office of U.S. Rep. for the 2nd District of Kansas Steve Watkins, GSA Heartland Regional Administrator Michael Copeland and Elizabeth Johnson, Office of U.S. Senator for Missouri Josh Hawley. Photograph by Alison Kohler

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By Alison Kohler

LEE’S SUMMIT, Mo. — In a joint meeting Dec. 9, four staff from Kansas and Missouri members of the U.S. Congress, along with GSA Heartland Region officials, toured two Kansas City-area facilities where millions of immigration applications and documents are processed.

GSA’s Heartland Region leases the facilities, in addition to several others in the area, from private industry lessors on behalf of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

“GSA is honored to handle our federal agency customers’ facility needs, so clients like USCIS can focus on their highly important mission,” said GSA Regional Client Solutions Branch Chief Matt Helmering.

Lee’s Summit Card Production Facility produces millions of secure, authentic forms and documents

At the Lee’s Summit facility, about 30 federal employees and contract staff use state-of-the-art equipment, technology and security to produce about 10,000 authentic immigration documents per day, according to the USCIS Site Manager for LPF. 

The Lee’s Summit facility has been operating for five years, with a sister site in Kentucky performing the same function for the past 20 years. The addition of this 16,000-square-foot facility ensures continuity of operations in the event one site cannot operate after a man-made or natural disaster.

The sites mass produce primarily three documents for approved immigrants in the United States. They include:

— Employment authorization cards.
— Green cards (to live and work permanently in the United States).
— Travel documents.

National Benefits Center takes in applications and evidence from every U.S. state and territory

With combined operational and storage space totaling 500,000 square feet, the National Benefits Center has roughly 1,700 federal employees and contractors operating out of a facility in Lee’s Summit, Missouri, and another 700 out of Overland Park, Kansas. The NBC processes applications from every U.S. state and territory for different immigration benefits including: authorization for employment, travel abroad, permanent residency and naturalization to become a U.S. citizen. The NBC’s primary function is to prepare the case files for more than 85 field offices nationwide to ultimately adjudicate.

The NBC takes in 2.5 million receipts per year, which are then logged, tracked and moved through the vetting process. GSA recently leased and managed the renovation of additional space in the Lee’s Summit location, which allowed USCIS to train new employees on-site rather than pay travel costs for a six-week course out of state.

National Records Center manages 3,900 football field lengths of records

Another 750 federal employees and contractors manage the merging, scanning, correcting, storing and retiring of immigration records for the USCIS’ National Records Center out of close to a half million square feet of operational and storage space GSA leases in the Kansas City area. USCIS National Records Center Deputy Director Ethan Cole said the primary responsibility is to move files in and out of storage as needed. “Whenever a stakeholder requests information, we get the right information to the right stakeholder,” he said.

Each year, NRC workers touch 10.2 million records, and the Freedom of Information Act office received 220,000 requests last year. “It’s the largest FOIA operation in the U.S. government,” said USCIS Chief FOIA Officer Jill Eggleston.

USCIS infuses hundreds of millions into Kansas City economy

All told, the USCIS operations in the Kansas City area account for hundreds of millions of dollars in economic impact through payroll, rent and utilities payments. USCIS is funded primarily by immigration and naturalization benefit fees charged to applicants and petitioners, so only about 3% annually is derived from American taxpayer funding and operations do not shut down when the government experiences a lapse in annual appropriations.

“It’s a significant economic impact to the Kansas City area,” said National Benefits Center Chief of Staff Robert Tauchen. “USCIS from almost nothing here 20 years ago until now, has really grown.”

GSA’s Heartland Region jointly hosts staffers of members of U.S. Congress representing Kansas, Missouri, Iowa and Nebraska on a regular basis at sites GSA manages for federal agency customers. “We look forward to hearing (congressional staffers’) suggestions of which agencies and locations you’d like to see in 2020,” said GSA Heartland Regional Administrator Michael Copeland.