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Immigration and Naturalization Service Collection of Fees at Air Ports of Entry

Report No. 02-42
September 2002
Office of the Inspector General


APPENDIX I
OBJECTIVES, SCOPE, AND METHODOLOGY

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Our objectives were to determine whether the INS's procedures and controls over the fee collection process were adequate to ensure that:

We performed the audit in accordance with generally accepted Government Auditing Standards issued by the Comptroller General of the United States, and included tests necessary to accomplish the objectives.

During the audit, we requested a universe of airports and related fee collections from the INS. However, INS management could not provide sufficient data to identify all the airports where fees were collected nor determine the amount of the fees collected. Therefore, from listings of international airports maintained by the Federal Aviation Administration, the U.S. Customs Service, and the INS, we identified 185 air POEs where INS staff might collect fees. We selected eight large international air POEs for our testing: John F. Kennedy Airport, New York, New York; Hartsfield Airport, Atlanta, Georgia; Miami Airport, Miami, Florida; O'Hare Airport, Chicago, Illinois; Detroit Metropolitan Airport, Detroit, Michigan; Los Angeles Airport, Los Angeles, California; San Francisco Airport, San Francisco, California; and Pearson Airport, Toronto, Canada.

The audit period was October 2000 through June 2001. We conducted site visits during July and August 2001. In performing this audit, we arrived unannounced and observed the fee collection and application processes at the eight sample air POEs. We also reviewed specific documents, performed tests of selected records and transactions, and interviewed INS officials at the air POEs, the Debt Management Center in Williston, Vermont, and INS Headquarters.

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