By Calvin Biesecker
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is putting together its final recommendations for a system that would capture the fingerprints of foreigners leaving the United States through airports and seaports and expects to be able to begin implementing a solution in FY ’11, a DHS official said yesterday
It’s unlikely the biometric air and sea exit system will be ready this fiscal year but “we will try if it is possible with some test points to do that,” Rand Beers, under secretary for the National Protection and Programs Directorate, told the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. A recommendation on options for the biometric solution will be put to Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano shortly and she is expected to review it this month or next for a decision, he said.
Once that decision is made, DHS will be seeking funding from Congress to implement the biometric exit solution, Beers said. As for a biometric exit solution at the nation’s land ports of entry, Beers told Committee Chairman Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I/D-Conn.), “That’s a much longer conversation, sir.”
Accenture [ACN] is the prime contractor for US-VISIT.
The biometric exit solution will be part of the nation’s US-VISIT program, which currently compares fingerprints of foreign nationals as they enter the nation’s airports against a database managed by DHS. The database is populated in part by the capture of fingerprints from foreigners when they apply for visas to this country at U.S. consulates overseas. This way U.S. Customs officials better ensure that a person entering the United States has been cleared to do so by the State Department.
A biometric exit solution will help U.S. officials know if foreigners leaving the country are in compliance with the stipulations of their Visa, Beers said. It will also allow them to know if departing foreigners may have been involved in criminal activity in the United States during their stay and whether they are permitted to leave, he said.
In fact, pilot tests of the biometric system at two airports earlier this year resulted in the apprehension of some individuals who were wanted in the United States and were trying to leave the country, Beers said.
“So I think it is an additional degree of assurance,” Beers said of the biometric exit solution.
Beers said that the options under review “all have as an element of that the assurance that people cannot exit the country in that visa status by air or sea without actually checking out, so that will increase our certainty about individuals.”
While foreigners arriving to the United States by air could depart by land, Beers said that most people who come by air leave by air. The United States currently uses a biographic-based system for detecting people who may be overstaying their visas. Beers said that this system isn’t perfect but does result in the regular referral of cases to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, some of which have resulted in arrests.
The earlier pilot tests involved two separate departure scenarios, one involving Transportation Security Administration officers conducting the fingerprint checks at airport security checkpoints and the other involving Customs and Border Protection officers doing the checks at airline departure gates. Both demonstrations showed that a biometric air exit solution can be done, DHS has said (Defense Daily, Oct. 2).
Beers said that the options that will be given to Napolitano include solutions learned from the previous tests but were not actually tested.
In addition to seeking funds for the program from Congress, DHS will have to go through a final rulemaking process.
Lieberman said that having a timeline now for the biometric exit solution is “good news.”