Implement Entry-Exit System

Full Implementation of US-VISIT

Click here to view a list of immigration laws the Bush Administration IS NOT ENFORCING

What’s US-VISIT?
US-VISIT is a vital border security program that uses advanced biometric technology and enhanced “lookout lists” as to improve the screening of foreign visitors.  This helps deter and detect the entry of terrorists, criminals, immigration violators, and any other dangerous or inadmissible visitors.  In short, as intended by the framers of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (IIRIRA), US-VISIT is a three-pronged system that:

• verifies a visitor’s identity by ensuring that the visitor is the same person to whom the travel documents presented were issued, which, in turn, guards against document and identity fraud;
• checks visitors against several security and immigration watch lists; and
• tracks visitors’ entries and exits, which enables authorities to know whether a visitor has departed the United States and complied with the terms of his/her admission.

What’s The Problem?
Section 110 of IIRIRA mandates that all aliens be processed through US-VISIT so as to “collect a record of departure for every alien departing the United States and match the records of departure with the record of the alien’s arrival in the United States.”  However, nearly eight-and-half years since those provisions were enacted into law, barely one-fifth of all visitors to this country are screened through US-VISIT (the Center for Immigration Studies’ [CIS] August 2005 estimate was 22 percent).  Why?

• Most visitors from Mexico and Canada – not surprisingly, the two nations from which the lion’s share (about 78 percent) of visitors come (as well the highest and fourth-highest numbers of illegal aliens, respectively) – are exempted from enrolling in either the entry or exit components … and DHS has shown no intention to ever require that these visitors be enrolled.
• Following the successes (see below) of US-VISIT’s initial “implementation” (i.e., use of the entry system at all U.S. airports in January 2004 despite being statutorily required, by that point, to have full entry and exit capabilities at all U.S. airport and seaports), DHS decided that, in implementing the program at the 50 busiest land border ports-of-entry (POEs), it would only require Canadians who require a visa and Mexicans entering for long stays or traveling beyond the immediate border area to be enrolled.  What that means is that only about three percent of all visitors using those POEs and those amongst the least likely to pose a terrorist threat or to overstay a visa are the ones who are being tracked by US-VISIT.  No wonder one Northern border POE director thought that this stage of implementation was “practically a non-event.”
• As a result of DHS’ sloth and unwillingness to implement and enforce the law, the GAO recently issued a report – and its IT director testified before Congress – questioning whether US-VISIT is, in fact, “the right solution.”

Why is Full Implementation of US-VISIT Needed?
In December 2005, Representative Mike Castle (R-DE) offered a successful amendment to the Border Protection, Antiterrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act of 2005 (H.R. 4437) that requires DHS to submit to Congress a timeline for full implementation of US-VISIT.  Why must this process be expedited and US-VISIT made fully operational?

• Despite naysaying by big business, travel interests, and others (including DHS, apparently) who thought it would wreak havoc on the admission process and congest POEs, when and where it has been implemented, US-VISIT works by keeping out those who should not be let in.  According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), in its first 17 months of use at U.S. airports (which, remember, utilized only the entry portion of the program), US-VISIT’s biometric screening and use of security lists and databases aided consular officers abroad in denying visas to thousands of ineligible applicants who might not have been detected otherwise and rejected the entry of 594 visitors at POEs – among them sexual predators, murderers, and repeat-offender immigration violators.
• The exit recording component of US-VISIT would aid in the tracking of visa compliance, the reduction of overstays, and help DHS ascertain whether a “person of interest” has left the country.  Given that US-VISIT is only partially operational and that the agency only collects exit information from a select few, DHS has no hope of keeping tabs on the 200 million temporary visitors each year and whether they’ve left as required; Mohammed Atta was one, and he didn’t, much to the horror of a nation and the rest of the civilized world.
• And it’s not only terrorists and other evildoers that need to be checked with regard to overstays; DHS estimates that at least 40 percent of the illegal aliens in the United States are overstayers.  Consequently, US-VISIT would be a vital tool in “interior enforcement” (i.e., detecting, detaining and deporting illegal aliens from communities in all regions, not just along the borders).  However, without further reform through mandatory workplace employment eligibility verification – and real enforcement thereof by ICE (e.g, only three Notices of Intent to Fine employers and only 159 worksite enforcement criminal arrests in fiscal year 2004) – the true impact of US-VISIT will be somewhat mitigated.
• Despite DHS’ protestations that it can’t afford the expenses associated with implementing it, US-VISIT is an economically viable program.  Yes, some significant outlays must be made – notably, for infrastructure improvements to handle new traffic patterns and for installation of equipment and personnel – but when one measures those figures against the almost incalculable costs incurred by American taxpayers as a result of illegal immigration (not only fiscal, but societal and environmental) and the potential devastation following another 9/11-style terrorist attack, isn’t it worth it?

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: Department of Homeland Security Fact Sheet: Changes to National Security Entry/Exit Registration System (NSEERS)