IndiaPost.com - February 2008 Immigration Update

(Continued from last week's article)

4. DHS Begins Collecting 10 Fingerprints at Boston Airport

The Department of Home land Security (DHS) announced on January 22, 2008, that it has begun collecting additional fingerprints from international visitors arriving at Boston Logan International Airport (Logan). The change is part of the DHS's upgrade from two- to 10-fingerprint collection.

For more than four years, U.S. Department of State (DOS) consular officers and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers have been collecting biometrics-digital fingerprints and a photograph-from all non-US citizens between the ages of 14 and 79, with some exceptions, when they apply for visas or arrive at US ports of entry.

The department's US-VISIT program includes checks of a visitor's fingerprints against DHS records of immigration violators and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) records of criminals and known or suspected terrorists.

The DHS said that collecting 10 fingerprints improves fingerprint matching accuracy and the agency's ability to compare a visitor's fingerprints against latent fingerprints collected by Department of Defense (DOD) and the FBI from "known and unknown" terrorists. Additionally, visitors' fingerprints are checked against the FBI's Criminal Master File.

On an average day at Logan, almost 2,000 international visitors complete US-VISIT biometric procedures. Visitors from the United Kingdom, Ireland, Germany, and France comprise the largest numbers of international visitors arriving at Logan. Washington Dulles International Airport began 10-fingerprint collection on November 29, 2007, and Hartsfield Jackson Atlanta International Airport began 10-fingerprint collection on January 6, 2008.

Seven other ports of entry will soon begin collecting additional fingerprints: Chicago O'Hare International Airport, San Francisco International Airport, George Bush Houston Intercontinental Airport, Miami International Airport, Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport, Orlando International Airport, and John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York. The remaining air, sea, and land ports will transition to collecting 10 fingerprints by the end of 2008, the DHS said.

5. State Dept. Issues Travel Documentation Reminder The Department of State issued a reminder that effective January 23, 2007, all persons traveling by air between the US and Canada, Mexico, Bermuda, and the Caribbean region must present a passport or other valid travel document to enter or re-enter the US Beginning January 31, 2008,US and Canadian citizens need to present either a Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative (WHTI)-compliant document, or a government-issued photo ID, such as a driver's license, plus proof of citizenship, such as a birth certificate.

At a later date, to be determined, the Departments of State and Homeland Security will implement the full requirements of the land and sea phase of WHTI. Proposed rules require most US citizens entering the US at sea or land ports of entry to have either a US passport; a US passport card; a trusted traveler card such as NEXUS, FAST, or SENTRI; a valid Merchant Mariner Document (MMD) when traveling in conjunction with official maritime business; or a valid US Military identification card when traveling on official orders.

Members of the US Armed Forces on active duty traveling on orders are exempt from the passport requirement. The passport requirement does not apply to US citizens traveling to or returning directly from a US territory. US citizens may begin applying in advance for the new, limited-use, wallet-size passport card beginning February 1, 2008.

The Department said it expects that the cards will be available and mailed to applicants in spring 2008. When available, it will only be valid for land and sea travel between the US and Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean region, and Bermuda.

A related 23-page letter on the WHTI from Richard Stana, Director of Homeland Security and Justice Issues for the Government Accountability Office, to the House of Representatives' Subcommittee on Border, Maritime and Global Counterterrorism, is available at http://www.aila.org/content/default.aspx?docid=24355 . Among other things, Mr. Stana noted that the GAO "acknowledge[s] that DHS has taken a number of actions to prepare for testing and deploying technologies and managing the implementation of other WHTI activities.

However, as key elements of planning for program management and execution remain uncertain, we continue to believe that DHS faces challenges deploying technology, and staffing and training officers to use it."

6. New ICE System Analyzes Suspicious Relationships, Patterns U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) plans to soon launch the "ICE Pattern Analysis and Information Collection System" (ICEPIC).

The system is intended to assist investigators by "identifying suspect identities and discovering possible non-obvious relationships among individuals and organizations" to discover violations of customs and immigration laws as well as possible terrorist threats or plots, according to a DHS report.

The databases, which ICE declined to identify specifically, include those that track foreign students and visitors, immigrants, criminals and suspected terrorists. "All ICEPIC activity is associated with ongoing and valid law enforcement investigations," the report noted. The system reportedly includes the terrorist watch list, from which an estimated 15,000 people have appealed to have their names removed because of incomplete information or inaccuracies.

According to the agency, ICEPIC builds on earlier ICE initiatives to verify the identity of Special Interest Aliens (SIAs), as designated by the Department of State. In 2003, ICE implemented the National Security Entry Exit Registration System (NSEERS) to manage the growing collection of over 500,000 SIA records. National and international terrorist threats during 2004 and 2005 resulted in ICE reviewing not only the SIA records in NSEERS, but also the records of those registered with the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS) and entered into the United States Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator Technology (US VISIT) system. ICEPIC reveals relationships to an identified target, but it is not used to reveal a "predictive pattern," the report said.

From the relationships identified, ICE agents will develop specific leads and intelligence for active and new investigations. ICE is claiming certain exemptions from the Privacy Act. The report is available at http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/privacy/privacy_pia_ice_icepic.pdf.

A January 30 proposed rule to exempt parts of ICEPIC from the Privacy Act is at http://frwebgate1.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/waisgate.cgi?WAISdocID=042632391 282+0+0+0&WAISaction=retrieve.