US to fingerprint visitors from 9/11
By Anwar Iqbal
From the International Desk
Published 8/13/2002 11:08 AM
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WASHINGTON, Aug. 13 (UPI) -- The United States will fingerprint and photograph tens of thousands of visitors from several Middle Eastern and Muslim countries entering the country after Sept. 11, U.S. officials announced Tuesday.
Sept. 11 has been chosen as the starting date for the new procedure because of its symbolic importance as the day when the United States faced the worst terrorist attack in its history.
"After an initial 20-day period for testing and evaluating the system at selected ports of entry, all remaining ports of entry -- including land, air and sea -- will have the new system in place on Oct. 1," said Attorney General John Ashcroft, who announced the first phase of the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System.
He said: "The visitors will be selected according to intelligence criteria reflecting patterns of terrorist organizations' activities."
Visitors from five countries on the U.S. State Department's state sponsors of terrorism -- Iran, Iraq, Libya, Sudan and Syria -- will be photographed and fingerprinted.
The program will also apply to non-immigrant aliens whom the State Department determines to present an elevated national security risk, based on criteria reflecting current intelligence.
Aliens identified by Immigration and Naturalization Service inspectors at the port of entry, using similar criteria, will also be scrutinized.
"The vulnerabilities of our immigration system became starkly clear on Sept. 11," said Ashcroft.
The new program, which will be implemented by the INS, will correct some of the problems that led to the Sept. 11 attacks, Ashcroft said.
The program will also require so-called high-risk visiting aliens to confirm periodically where they are living and what they are doing in the United States. They must also inform the INS whenever they leave the country.
"This system will expand substantially America's scrutiny of those foreign visitors who may present an elevated national security risk, and it will provide a vital line of defense in the war against terrorism," Ashcroft said.
Congress required the Justice Department to develop a stricter entry-exit system conforming to sweeping anti-terrorism legislation that was signed by President George W. Bush late last year.
Ashcroft described the new measures as the first step toward the development of a comprehensive entry-exit system applicable to virtually all foreign visitors.
Fingerprints obtained under the new procedure will be matched against a database of known criminals and terrorists.
The system has already been tested under a pilot project that used the same fingerprint technology to identify wanted criminals attempting to re-enter the United States.
The Immigration and Naturalization Service received an average of more than 70 "hits" a week under this program, which resulted in the arrest of more than 2,000 wanted felons from January-July 2002.
U.S. law has long required foreign nationals who stay in the country for more than 30 days to be registered and fingerprinted, but the law has been virtually suspended for decades.
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