Structuring and Validating Completeness of Case Data Information
Description
How can referrals from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) be more quickly reviewed for critical pieces of information about their parents and the reason for separation? Since November 2024, when a minor is separated from their parent or legal guardian, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) within DHS is required to send certain pieces of information about the parent/legal guardian in accordance with the Ms L vs ICE settlement. CBP send this information in a block of free text and sometimes do not include the required information. Historically, ACF's Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR)’s tracking of required information has been done manually and inconsistently.
Detailed example
Structured data asset of the critical data points needed about a separation case. AI is used to conduct initial parsing of the data provided by CBP and highlight whether or not the required fields from the Ms L vs. ICE settlement are included and can therefore be updated into the child's profile in ORR's data system. ORR's Intakes Team does final review and in cases where data appears to be missing, the ORR Intakes Team reaches back out to CBP for that information.
AI / analytics pattern
Agentic AI: AI systems that perform tasks or make decisions autonomously with minimal human intervention.
Automation level / stage
c) Deployed – The use case is being actively authorized or utilized to support the functions or mission of an agency.
Expected benefit
More easily searchable and accurate data on family separations Quicker validation of CBP compliance in essential data sharing for separated families, enabling faster follow-up as needed to receive any missing data points
Audit / financial statement impact
The use of AI is narrowly focused on extracting key data points from scanned notices. The outputs do not serve as a principal basis for decisions or actions with legal, material, binding, or significant effect on any of the 6 cases outlined in M-25-21, page 19.
Controls / human review
ATO: Yes; PIA: To be posted on https://www.hhs.gov/pia/index.html, pending HHS OCIO action
Data needed
No training or fine-tuning; we are using secure commercially available LLMs.