DHS vs. The Cat People

We're in the process of adopting a cat from a local shelter, which, apparently, cares very much where their homeless critters go. We had to provide three character references and the name of our vet. The shelter went ahead and obtained records from the vet, and then called all three references. One of these people, a friend from work, commented that when we put her down as a reference for my husband's permanent resident application last year, nobody from DHS called her. That surprised me. Turns out DHS didn't call anyone on our reference list. Were they too busy to call? are Finnish immigrants not worth worrying about? does DHS just not care? I realize Finland is not terribly controversial in the scope of world events, but for all DHS knows, my husband is part of some radical Finnish organization that seeks to impose mandatory recitations of the Kalevala on an unsuspecting populace. Not worth one phone call to find out? It's possible that the folks at DHS have streamlined things enough to know whose backgrounds are worth checking, but I'd still feel more secure if they showed almost as much concern over the adoption of foreign citizens as the shelter people do when they're adopting out stray cats.