TAMPA, Fla. — With processing of international air travelers arriving in the United States at capacity and Congress demanding a better job tracking the departure from the country by these visitors, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is moving into high gear on a project that would retool the entry and exit processes at customs checkpoints in U.S. airports for foreign nationals, a department official said here on Wednesday.
At the behest of DHS’ Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency, the Science and Technology branch of DHS and CBP in March agreed on the high priority Air Entry-Exit Reengineering (AEER) program. S&T is managing the APEX program, which refers to the high-priority and aggressive timeline for getting a capability that can be field tested relatively quickly.
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| DHS’ Bob Burns. Photo: DHS. |
The goal is to have a biometric air exit capability in 10 airports between October and December 2015, Bob Burns, who oversees S&T’s APEX projects, said at the Biometrics Consortium Conference here hosted by AFCEA. That timeframe is being driven by potential congressional legislation on comprehensive immigration reform.
The Senate this summer passed an immigration reform bill requiring DHS to implement a biometric air exit solution at 10 international airports in the United States within about two years of the bill becoming law. However, the prospects of any comprehensive immigration bill in the House are uncertain at best, and for now the topic is on the backburner in that chamber.
Currently, foreign nationals arriving in U.S. airports have their fingerprints scanned to verify their identities. Similar capabilities haven’t been deployed for outbound flights because the technology to process individuals has either been deemed too expensive or to difficult to integrate into outbound processes.
The desire to verify the departure of foreign national from the United States is to better determine if anyone is overstaying their visas as was the case with some of the 9/11 terrorists. Currently, CBP relies on biographic checks to help determine if someone has left the country on time but this modality isn’t considered as useful as biometrics.
Burns said that the AEER program will consider biometric–including fingerprint, face and iris–and non-biometric technologies. For now, the program is only concerned with air travelers but Burns said if a solution can be developed that works for sea and land ports of entry and exit, “so much the better.”
So far Burns and his team have been meeting with various aviation stakeholders, including airlines, airports, travel associations, CBP and the public as part of the quest to develop requirements and understand existing gaps. These requirements are due within 60 days, he said.
The project has been staffed, stakeholder engagement is in place, lessons learned from previous pilot tests have been reviewed, and technology is being explored. Burns said his deputy is in Europe surveying what airports have done for their respective international entry and exit processes and technologies.
Next year, S&T will establish a test bed in Maryland for scenario testing and demonstrations of how new entry and exit processes could work, including concepts of operations and interaction with the public. Burns expects the test bed to start operating in February.
S&T will also host a technology qualification process as part of lab testing. Burns expects to have multiple solutions as some will work in certain airports while others would be needed for different airports. He said mobile solutions may work for airports that have infrequent international flights.
Everything is currently on the table for a notional concept of operations, Burns said. He noted, however, that the project has no time for technology development as laboratory testing begins in four months.
Beyond the initial testing, the plan is to have a prototype solution or solutions in the field in the spring of 2015 for an evaluation at an airport to be followed by additional systems ready by late 2015 for field testing by CBP at nine more airports, Burns said.
Everyone wants to fix the exit issue, but Burns said that changes here could put the entry side at risk, which is why he is looking at the entire continuum of entry and exit.
Burns said that currently the arrival system is clogged, which means there is no room for additional flights or passengers into the country. Citing officials from Dulles International Airport near Washington, D.C., he said that if six seconds can be shaved off entry processing, that would free six CBP officers annually for exit operations. Any solutions can’t impede air travel, he added.
The AEER project is “well resourced,” Burns told Defense Daily, adding that S&T provided $10 million for the effort in FY ’13. Burns is partnered with CBP’s Office of Field Operations, which recently set up the Office of Entry-Exit Transformation, a further sign that DHS is taking a closer look at how to improve the security and efficiency surrounding arrivals and departures of foreign nationals to and from the United States.