Tammy M. Meckley Associate Director, Immigration Records and Identity Services Directorate, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, U.S. Department of Homeland Security
As associate director of the Immigration Records and Identity Services (IRIS) Directorate, Tammy Meckley focuses on creatively modernizing federal information operations to enhance the effectiveness and integrity of a lawful immigration system.
IRIS provides trusted and timely immigration information to more than one million stakeholders, including immigrants, legal representatives, private employers, and federal, state, and local public agencies. Meckley leads a team of more than 2,800 federal and contract employees to modernize and manage access to more than 100 million digital and physical immigration records. She oversees operations in more than 130 locations nationwide, and critically manages an annual budget of more than $450 million.
Meckley also leads large scale technology initiatives to simultaneously enhance decisions and efficiency through identity verification and fraud prevention across multiple federal agencies. Under her leadership, IRIS has accelerated decision processes by connecting separate agency technologies; improving access to information by creating the first digital immigration records; and making immigration information searchable by associating decades of transactions with immigrants’ digital identities. She oversees the United States core services for lawful hiring using E-Verify, facilitates accurate public benefit determinations through (SAVE), and responds to the largest number of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests in the federal government.
Prior to her current role, Meckley served as deputy associate director of the USCIS Enterprise Services Directorate and in several leadership roles with Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the U.S. Transportation Security Administration. As assistant vice president for the publicly traded company ChoicePoint, she created a privacy reputation management program and established privacy principles, policies, and strategy.
Meckley was inducted into the DHS Hall of Fame in 2024, and was recognized with the Meritorious Presidential Rank Award for superior performance in 2023. She received Homeland Security Today’s Hot 50 industry award for removing red tape and paper from USCIS processes. She received the FOIA Sunshine award for leading the creation of the Federal Government's first fully automated FOIA system. Meckley graduated magna cum laude from George Mason University with a bachelor’s degree in business management. She hails from Punxsutawney, PA.