High-risk aliens to be fingerprinted
By Michael Kirkland
UPI Legal Affairs Correspondent
From the Washington Politics & Policy Desk
Published 6/5/2002 8:47 PM
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WASHINGTON, June 5 (UPI) -- Immigration officials will fingerprint aliens coming into the country who represent "elevated national security concerns," Attorney General John Ashcroft said Wednesday.
The fingerprints will be "run against a database of thousands (of fingerprints) of known terrorists," Ashcroft said. The attorney general said new technology will allow the comparisons to be made in three minutes, but civil libertarians attacked the proposal.
"We have the technological capacity to do this," Ashcroft said. " ... We need to employ it as soon as possible."
Officials expect the new system to be in place by the fall. The attorney general said the authority to implement the new plan already exists in U.S. law.
Though Ashcroft refused to say what criteria would cause an incoming alien to be labeled an "elevated national security concern," it is expected that young men from Islamic countries with underground terrorist organizations will be included in the category.
Everyone entering the United States from five countries considered to be state sponsors of terrorism -- Iraq, Iran, Libya, Sudan and Syria -- will automatically be included in the "elevated" category.
Those coming in from Cuba and North Korea will be subject to different unspecified criteria, Justice Department officials said later.
Civil liberties groups described the new immigrant tracking plan as discriminatory and ineffective.
"The Bush administration is, step by step, isolating Muslim and Arab communities both in the eyes of the government and the American people," said Timothy Edgar, an American Civil Liberties Union Legislative Counsel. "This latest move needs to be seen in the larger context of all the actions targeted at people of Middle Eastern decent since Sept. 11."
In a statement, the ACLU said it has long opposed immigrant registration laws, claiming they treat immigrant populations as a separate and quasi-criminal element of society and that they create an easy avenue for surveillance of those who may hold unpopular beliefs.
"It's pretty obvious that this plan won't work at anything except allowing the government to essentially pick on people who haven't done anything wrong but happen to come from the administration's idea of the wrong side of the global tracks," said Lucas Guttentag, director of the ACLU Immigrants' Rights.
Fingerprint comparison is part of a three-stage "National Security Entry-Exit Registration System" now being put into place by the Immigration and Naturalization.
In his Wednesday news conference, Ashcroft called the new system "the vital first line of defense in the war against terrorism."
Congress has mandated that INS track all 35 million visitors to the United States by 2005. "The Entry-Exit System is the first phase" in meeting that mandate, Ashcroft said.
The system is expected to track about 100,000 aliens in its first full year of operation.
Ashcroft said a five-month pilot program involving fingerprint comparison with a known criminals database came up with "67 hits per week."
Under the Entry-Exit system, fingerprints of selected aliens will be compared to databases of known terrorists, criminals and people who have been removed from the United States earlier.
The second part of the system would require periodic registration of those aliens who raise "elevated national security concerns."
Such aliens would have to register with the INS 30 days after entering the country and every 12 months thereafter. Ashcroft said the main purpose is to make sure aliens are doing what they are allowed to do where they are allowed to do it.
The third part of the system is the establishment of exit controls when visas expire, Ashcroft said, "so that we know who leaves on time and who doesn't."
Registration and exit violations will be put into the FBI's national criminal database, and state and local law enforcement officials will be asked to help track down violators.
That will be the only time state and local law enforcement will be asked to help enforce immigration laws, Ashcroft said.
The Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel has determined that non-federal officers can take such action "within the inherent authority of the states," Ashcroft said.
The attorney general said the 19 known hijackers in the Sept. 11 terror attacks entered the country months, and in some cases, years before the attacks were launched.
"Once in they were able to evade authorities and violate the terms of their visas with impunity," he added.
The new procedures are designed to fight such an invader who wears no uniform, Ashcroft said.
The new enemy uses different methods, he said. Their tactics rely on evading registration at the border and evading detection in the United States.
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