The Change Mariner

115 U.S. Airports & 14 Seaports To Track Foreign Visitors

FoxReno.com:

San Francisco and Oakland international airports will be among 115 airports and 14 seaports implementing a new system that is designed to confirm the identity of arriving foreign visitors, and to better track their whereabouts while they are in the United States, according to officials at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

Monday marks the official start of the US-VISIT program, which stands for United States Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator Technology.

The program processes visa-holders as they enter the U.S., and is a cornerstone of the DHS' goal to improve security at the nation's borders, officials said.

Mineta San Jose International Airport is one of 30 airports implementing just the exit portion of the program, according to airport officials. Entrance and exit procedures will be phased in at all air, sea and land border entrances by the end of 2005, DHS officials said.

Officials said many of the current entry procedures remain the same, with a couple of additional measures that in most cases will take just a few seconds. US-VISIT will use scanning equipment to collect "biometric identifiers,'' including electronic fingerprints and digital photos, according to the DHS.

Data collected from foreign travelers will be securely stored as part of the visitor's travel record.

When exiting the U.S., visitors will check out at kiosks by scanning their passport or visa and repeating the fingerprint scan, according to DHS officials. The information will be available to authorized officials and law enforcement agencies, and will help verify compliance with visa and immigration policies, officials said.

Fingerscans and other data will be checked against a database of known and suspected terrorists, according to the DHS, making the system more effective than a simple names database, and protecting the identities of those whose travel documents have been stolen.

The US-VISIT program received $380 million in 2003, and is slated to receive another $330 million in 2004, according to the DHS.