More travelers to U.S. must be fingerprinted

By Christopher Lee and Sara Kehaulani Goo
The Washington Post

	STEPHEN CHERNIN / GETTY IMAGES A foreign traveler gets a finger scan in January at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City. The United States is expanding its program to track travelers from many other countries.
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WASHINGTON — Millions of visitors from some of the United States' closest allies soon will have to be fingerprinted and photographed before entering the country, U.S. officials said yesterday.

Officials said requirements of the U.S. Visit program will be expanded this fall to cover about 13 million travelers each year from 27 additional countries, including Australia, Britain and Japan, whose citizens are allowed to travel within the United States for up to 90 days without a visa.

The program — an effort to track down criminals, suspected terrorists and travelers who overstay visas — began Jan. 5 and currently applies mainly to about 19 million visitors each year from Central and South America, Africa and Asia.

The expansion, which will take effect by Sept. 30, means only travelers from Mexico and Canada and diplomats will not be fingerprinted and photographed automatically when they enter the United States through any of 115 airports and 14 seaports, said Asa Hutchinson, undersecretary for border and transportation security at the Department of Homeland Security. The new requirements, which are expected to add about 15 seconds to a traveler's journey, also will apply to the 50 busiest border crossings by Dec. 30, he said.

What it means for our neighbors • Canadians are not required to have visas and are not part of the visa-waiver program. They can travel throughout the United States with proof of Canadian citizenship for up to six months at a time. A Canadian who comes to the country to invest must have a visa to enter and would have to go through the U.S. Visit process. • Mexicans with border-crossing cards, or so-called laser visas, can travel to the United States for three days, but are restricted to 25 miles from the border, or 75 miles if they enter in Arizona. Mexicans are interviewed, fingerprinted and photographed when they apply for the laser visa. Mexicans who want to stay longer or travel outside the restricted area must have visas and go through the U.S. Visit process. — The Associated Press

"For the first time we will have a comprehensive check against our watch lists for all international visitors coming from overseas under the U.S. Visit program," Hutchinson said. "We did this because terrorists have a way of exploiting vulnerabilities and gaps in the system. This is a gap that we wanted to close."

The announcement came as the government disclosed a security warning that terrorists might try to bomb public transportation systems, such as trains and buses, in major U.S. cities this summer. A bulletin issued by the FBI and Homeland Security Department on the basis of "uncorroborated reporting" warns that terrorists could try to conceal explosives in luggage.

Passport requirements

Also yesterday, the Bush administration said it had asked Congress to extend by two years, to Oct. 26, 2006, a deadline for countries in the visa-waiver program to use only machine-readable passports that contain "biometric" information, such as fingerprints and digital photographs. By that deadline, Homeland Security also must have readers for biometric passports at all ports of entry.

European nations have been saying for months that they cannot make the deadline because they do not have the technology ready or the legal framework to allow such passports. Japan said it would have biometric passports by 2005. Only Australia said it would meet the deadline, and there has been confusion among countries about the technology and biometrics they should incorporate in the passports.

If Congress does not extend the passport deadline and the countries have not developed biometric passports, air travel between the United States and some of its biggest allies essentially would be halted. For that reason, Congress likely will approve the extension, congressional aides said.

U.S. Visit was prompted by a 2000 law that required the then-Immigration and Naturalization Service to develop an entry-and-exit system to better track visitors to the United States. The USA Patriot Act, passed after the Sept. 11 attacks, required the program to speed up and to collect biometric information from travelers.

About 2.6 million people have been processed under U.S. Visit, and more than 200 with prior or suspected criminal or immigration violations have been stopped, according to Homeland Security.

The European Union said it "understands some of the reasoning behind (the expansion of U.S. Visit), and we will have to look at the detail for how the U.S. proposes to carry it out," according to spokesman Anthony Gooch.

An EU official said it will firmly push the United States for a two-year deadline extension on biometric passports, and will consider fingerprinting U.S. citizens in Europe.

Concerns surface

Hutchinson said he would try to answer any concerns about the new fingerprinting requirements when he visits Europe this month. "We understand this is something there will be a lot of questions and comments (about), and some kickback from the international community," he said.

Officials with foreign airlines and U.S. airports said the program has not caused major delays for passengers. But they worry that imposing the fingerprinting requirement on 13 million more passengers annually could clog customs and immigration lines and delay flights.

"They suggest it's only adding 15 seconds a person ... but I can't believe that's really the average," said Todd Hauptli, a lobbyist for U.S. airports. "That's optimistic."

David O'Connor, who represents foreign airlines serving the United States, said he is anxious about how travelers will react to being fingerprinted. In some places, such as Brazil, people thought the use of fingerprinting treated visitors like criminals.

"The test will be, what is the public reaction?" said O'Connor, U.S. director of the International Air Transport Association, which represents 120 airlines serving the United States. "It may be fairly negative, especially in some countries such as France."

Some tourism experts fear that the new measures could reduce travel to America.

William Norman, president of the Travel Industry Association of America, said he's "greatly disappointed" about the expanded monitoring and "very concerned about the potential negative reactions in key tourism markets in Western Europe, Japan and other important visa-waiver countries."

Norman's comments were reported by Knight Ridder Newspapers.

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