I just sat through a surreal Committee on Homeland Security hearing where the minutia of biometric tracking of legal immigrants was discussed and not a peep was uttered about our totally unsecure border with Mexico and other land-border-crossing controls were dismissed as “difficult.”
The money and time that we as a nation are spending on fingerprinting and tracking visitors who enter our country legally, while ignoring a small problem of tens-of-thousands or perhaps hundreds-of-thousands of undocumented “visitors” waking across the border is something from Alice in Wonderland.
OK. Just like a good science fiction movie or spy thriller, I have to suspend belief a bit to focus on this committee hearing. Suffice it to say, when one ignores the Mexican border and undocumented visitors, our country’s security organizations are impressive and getting more impressive.
The U.S. has two different border control systems — one for legal visitors, tourists, workers and students and a second for illegal and undocumented visitors. The first is impressive, well funded, growing and relatively effective. The second is an embarrassment. If the U.S. was a house, one might say that our front door is locked tightly and well secured, but the back door is open.
Any traveler should know that their movements and specifics are available to our security services. We have a growing body of investigators and agencies that are collecting more and more information about us and legal foreign visitors to keep us safe and hold down numbers of legal visitors.
Here is the chilling (or comforting, depending on your point of view) testimony from Rand Beer, the Under Secretary, National Protection and Programs Directorate, Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
We have made significant improvements in the last five years:
• We have worked to unify immigration and border management systems in order to implement a robust, effective, timely and efficient capability to access and use biometrics-based information on criminals, immigration violators, and known or suspected terrorists.
• ICE identifies visitors who overstay their authorized terms of admission through an average of more than 300 credible leads that US-VISIT provides each week. Through ICE’s Secure Communities program, we are also helping to identify immigration
violators that state and local law enforcement officers arrest.
• Through the successful implementation of large scale biometric screening by US-VISIT we have provided support and leadership to biometric border management programs undertaken in the United Kingdom and Japan, and continue to support and encourage programs in various stages of application in the European Union, Canada, Mexico, Australia, Argentina, Peru, and other countries.
• We have put better capabilities in place for more efficient identification of fraudulent documents. We cooperated closely with DOS when it introduced an electronic passport, and we made every effort to ensure compliance with new passport standards by Visa Waiver Program countries. We have also worked together with State to implement the U.S. passport card, which provides U.S. citizens a secure, limited-use travel document in a more convenient format.
• We have implemented the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative, whereby U.S. and Canadian travelers are required to present more secure travel documents that denote identity and citizenship when seeking to enter our country, helping officers focus on threats while making legitimate travel more efficient.
Back to the biometrics. We are subjecting all foreign visitors to the United States to the same procedures faced by criminals under arrest. Every visitor to the United States now has all ten fingers fingerprinted.
DHS’ transition from collecting two to collecting 10 digital fingerprints at U.S. ports of entry from visitors to the United States is nearly complete. DHS deployed new 10-fingerprint scanners at ports of entry in 2008, and today the new 10-fingerprint scanning devices are in place at all major ports of entry, where international visitors can expect to use the upgraded technology when they enter the United States.
The use of 10-fingerprint readers improves the accuracy of identification; improves interoperability with the FBI, DOS, and local and tribal governments; and reduces the number of travelers referred to CBP secondary inspection. DHS is now able to conduct full searches against the FBI Unsolved Latent File, which allows DHS to match against prints lifted from crime scenes and those collected on battlefields and in safe houses overseas.
That is the present the situation for incoming visitors. Now, DHS is proposing the same 10-finger-fingerprinting for visitors as they depart the U.S. Testing for this system is already underway in Detroit where Border Patrol officers are collecting fingerprints at the boarding gates and in Atlanta where fingerprints are being collected at the TSA screening sites.
Of course, just as there is one tightly controlled and very expensive system for legal visitors and a non-existent version for illegals, this 10-finger-fingerprinting system is only foisted upon those who decide to arrive and depart by air. These same controls are not enforced at our land border ports of entry meaning that 300 million entries and departures are undocumented.
The man in charge of this Orwellian fingerprinting system focused only at airports, acknowledges, when discussing non-airline arrivals and departures, that, “Due to variations in infrastructure, environment, and traffic volume from port to port, a one-size-fits-all solution will be difficult.”
For the record, I am not a terrorist. Maybe, they don’t think the same way that I do. However, after hearing this testimony, I would simply fly into Mexico or Canada and then drive into the country or better yet take a bus to get into Fortress U.S. Or, maybe, I’d choose to stroll across the Texas/Mexico border.
And, by the way, anyone planning to travel abroad, should get ready for similar treatment from other countries. Fingerprints and iris scans are in our future.
More astonishing excerpts from the Homeland Security hearings will be revealed next week.
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
“We are subjecting all foreign visitors to the United States to the same procedures faced by criminals under arrest.”
We are subjecting all air travelers, foreign and domestic, to the same procedures (including a strip search, when the TSA finishes rolling it out) as convicted felons on their way to prison. So why should we complain about being fingerprinted?
A couple of points on this article. First, we treat all visitors like they are criminals and then we wonder why the number of foreign tourists has dropped so much over the last 8 years.
Second, I find it interesting that we continue to harp about the unsecured border with Mexico and fail to mention the one with Canada. Sure, most Canadians don’t want to sneak into the USA however there are a great many Chinese who visit Canada and then wander south. I suspect that there are probably a fair number of other groups of illegal immigrants who have made their way across our northern border.
Or what about those arriving by ship? Since most cruises docking here, originate in the US, probably cruise ships are not likely to be the source of illegal entry, but are crews of cargo ships checked? For that matter, the last that I read on the subject of the cargo itself, it wasn’t really carefully screened in all ports either.
I despise referring to people as “illegals”. People are not illegal. Their actions may be illegal, their residency status may be illegal, but individuals aren’t “Illegal”.
Mindsets like this allow us to look at people as ants to be squashed under the heel instead of as fellow human beings. It smacks of racism against Latinos, since when Americans use the term “illegals” they really mean “Mexicans”. I have yet to hear complaints about Chinese, Canadians, Gemans, Brits, or Danes, although I have met people from those countries who are here in the USA illegally–and for the same reason Mexicans come: work and $$$.
But for some reason it’s okay to ignore them while lambasting the Mexicans.
Skip, I can’t believe you. I’ve heard all illegals from where ever referred to as such. The problem is there are more illegal Mexicans than any other nationality in our country. I live in WA and we have more illegals from Mexico than from those coming from Canada. My son is in law enforcement and he said they called ICE to report an illegal from Mexico and they said “Oh, we only want to hear about them if they commit a felony!” ICE in Seattle has had no problem sending back illegal Asians, illegal Figians, and illegal South Africans that they’ve discovered here. We aren’t the ones discriminating, ICE is the one that is not doing their job and getting the illegals back to Mexico. In our state they know where they are. There was a company just north of where I live and it was raided. There were a number of illegal Mexicans that were detained. Later Napalito step in and they were released and given green cards!!! That isn’t done with other nationalities.
Skip, big difference. Who do you who do you think supports illegals?wE THE TAXPAYER. We are forced to subsidize their healthcare in emergency wards. They are great at oone thing baby makers.
Barbara, that is themost incredibly racist comment I have ever had the displeasure of seeing on this site. You obviously are unaware of the billions(yes, BILLIONS) of dollars that these people here illegally pay in taxes and social security. I wonder if you eat vegetables or fruits, as most of those are picked by the same people. I’m sure you would love to have a job like that! Think about the next time you buy produce. By the way, in Boston, where I live we have a huge number of illegal Irish immigrants. Do you call them baby makers too, or only those from Latin countries?
Barbara, this is the most racist comment it has ever been my displeasure to read on this normally civil site. Perhaps you are unaware of the billion (yes BILLIONS) of dollars that illegal immigrants pay in income and social security taxes. Remember that the vast majority came here, not to do illegal things, but to work and earn money, just as most legal immigrants have done for centuries. Next time you buy fruits and vegetables, think about who picked them and whether you would like to trade places with them. By the way, in Boston, where I live,we have a huge number of illegal Irish immigrants. Would you call them baby-makers, or is that term reserved for Illegal Latins?